Interestingly, the ability to predict behavior does not rely on the individual to be rational or sane. In many of our past clinical cases, we used applied behavior analysis to help treat psychotic episodes, hallucinations, delusional talk, and other forms of abnormal behavior. Even in cases where a person is considered mentally ill or deficient, his or her behavior may still be predicted accurately if ABC behavior principles are applied diligently. In short, everyone responds to the environment from their own perspective, regardless of whether the antecedent conditions are present, or valid, from their perspective. Whether the target of the analysis is a world leader, a terrorist, or the criminally insane, the ABC components help us analyze and predict their behavior.
Note
We don't have to thoroughly understand why a person commits a specific type of malicious act to predict its occurrence in the future. We do, however, need to identify the precipitating antecedent events and the desired consequences that followed each occasion of the malicious behavior in the past.
As a real example, Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who targeted young males. Therefore, young males, their activities, and the locations they frequented became antecedents to Dahmer's behavior of visiting these same locations. Once a victim was targeted in one of these locations, the victim himself became an antecedent that prompted Dahmer's next step, which was to approach the victim. During Dahmer's interaction with the potential victim, that person's responses served as antecedents to Dahmer's approach of inviting the victim to his home, where subsequent molestation and death were waiting. If the sequence of behaviors was successful, we can predict with some certainty that the murders would continue.
Dahmer murdered 17 males over 13 years, one at a time. The antecedents to the multiple attacks, the actual behavior of murder, and the sexual molestation after death were all highly similar to each other. Dahmer's actions were an example of how malicious, fatalistic behavior may be patterned. His serial murders were also examples of behavior increasing in frequency because of the consequences (his not being apprehended and his ability to engage in sexual molestation). Until he was caught, he was free to continue his murders at an increasing pace. Finally, he was apprehended after a victim narrowly escaped and brought police to Dahmer's house. When the police arrived, they discovered pictures of young murdered men, a head in the refrigerator, and disintegrating bodies in a container of flesh-eating and bone-dissolving chemicals.
An analysis of the behavior across many individuals indicates that antecedents, behavior, and consequences are specific to the individual. The more bizarre the case example, the more assured we can be that the individual is responding to conditions in ways that are very different from our normal behavior.
The following sections present analyses of three persons with malicious intent as examples of the many and varied malicious cases:
- Richard Reid, the infamous shoe bomber
- Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer
- The general, anonymous individual cyber attacker
These examples are purposely very differentâfor example, in the case of Ted Bundy, the subject could be considered to be mentally disturbed. Still, in each case the behaviors described in the examples, however repulsive, can be analyzed for predictive patterns using the methods presented in this book. The latter case, the cyber attacker, is meant to be unidentifiable to demonstrate that the identity of an individual is not a requirement to conduct a behavior-based analysis.
Richard Reid: The Shoe Bomber
On December 22, 2001, Richard Reid boarded American Airlines flight 63 bound for Miami, Florida, from Paris, France. It was less than 14 weeks after the devastating al-Qaeda 9/11 attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon and an aborted airliner attack downed in the fields of Pennsylvania when passengers intervened. En route, Reid took his seat like all the other passengers, but he wasn't like the other passengers. He was reportedly intent on killing everyone aboard the flight before the plane would reach Miami. Perhaps encouraged by the events just 14 weeks earlier (the infamous al-Qaeda 9/11 attack) and his self-proclaimed identification with al-Qaeda, Reid was serious, was prepared, and would kill himself along with the other passengers in the attempt. His chosen weapon was 10 ounces of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a powerful explosive that, if detonated, would bring down the plane into ...
