Deindividuation and Risky Shift

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 31st Jan 2022

When we consider that many criminal incidents, including violent ones, occur in group settings (where there is more than one person), and that a large number of violent acts are preceded by a pre-conflict phase, that involves dialogue and a degree of social interaction, it can be readily understood that having a working knowledge of how groups work psychologically and socially can be to our advantage. In social psychology there are basically two opposing views to how groups work/interact: one states that there is no collective influence of the group on individual members, whilst the other suggests that individuals maintain...Click To Read More

Cognitive, Emotional & Physiological Responses To A Threat

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 24th Jan 2022

Over the past ten years writing this blog, I’ve covered many subject areas, including the startle reflex, adrenaline, the “high and low road” processing of threats etc., however I’ve never joined them up to present a more complete picture of how they interrelate to each other. In this article I want to try to explain the different cognitive, emotional, and physiological processes that are at play when somebody throws an unexpected punch at you. Hopefully this will help give us a better idea of how we can expect ourselves to respond when these things happen, and not over-estimate our abilities...Click To Read More

The Mad, the Bad and The Sad

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 17th Jan 2022

A common tool that is often used in academia for remembering the DSM’s (the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) ten personality disorders is to group them into three sets: the mad, the bad, and the sad – these names represent the three different clusters that the manual uses. Those that are considered “mad” (Cluster A), are the disorders where the psychosis is significant enough to cause the sufferer to act in bizarre/eccentric ways, such as having a rigid pattern of thinking which makes the individual believe that everybody is conspiring against them e.g., Paranoid Personality...Click To Read More

Creating Hesitancy

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 10th Jan 2022

When you can create hesitancy in the person you are dealing with, whether it’s when sparring, competing, or dealing with a real-life aggressor, you create for yourself opportunities. The same is true if you can make a person over-commit; in fact, it is often hesitant people who end up over-committing, in order to overcome their hesitancy e.g., they figuratively – and sometimes literally – close their eyes and swing in the biggest haymaker they can, with the fingers of their other hand crossed – hoping that it will deliver the result they were looking for; in many cases they have...Click To Read More

Female Sexual Predators

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 3rd Jan 2022

There are two groups we tend not to think about regarding committing sexual assaults: women and young children. However, both groups do commit rapes and sexual assaults - just not at the same rates as men – and are largely under-reported and under-studied due to a variety of reasons (Turner et al., 2008). In the case of some child offenders, these assaults can’t be officially recognized as they fall below the age of criminal responsibility. By not recognizing the danger that such groups can potentially pose, we can create blind spots that they can exploit. This was illustrated this past...Click To Read More