#socialscripts

 Research in all fields is very important in helping us to understand how the world works around us. Data can be examined and presented in many different forms. As a researcher or observer, you still need to look at things objectively at times. Unfortunately, sometimes data is lacking and often data needs retheorized and tested again since it can change over periods of time. Sociology is one of those where culture and our media influences come into play a lot and some patterns only have truly only begun to be established. Crime, media, and technology have been continuing to influence patterns of behavior over centuries but as of the twentieth century, we are only now really beginning to understand more of these patterns, which also leaves the need for more research to be conducted.

I choose to present a hypothesized peer-reviewed article on copycat crimes. Currently as of this article’s publishing in December 2016 they are waiting for the studies to be validated or rejected. In this case, the researchers are using empirical observations from previous related research. They utilized crime concepts across several biology, sociology and psychology theories to develop their own theory on why copycat crimes need to be evaluated differently and how these established patterns they noticed were affected based on what is presented by the media. They began using 23 previously established theoretical concepts rooted in these fields of study. They are doing qualitative research that can’t easily be answered by numbers. It requires an understanding of an individual level as well as large scale due to the all dependent variables.

Until recently copycat crimes weren’t looked at as separate entity from criminology itself or looked at much from a sociological perspective, despite being considered a social phenomenon. So, the research is a bit understated currently and is a prelude to studies in progress. This article examines ways to ask questions going into the future while utilizing the connections that were established so far from hypothesis and reviewing concepts stemming from related theories. While I’m not going to discuss all concepts of those fields of study in detail or all 44 hypothesized questions presented on how to proceed with further research, I will highlight important points that stood out to me in this article will state that the 3 facets to keep in mind are: criminogenic media, the copycat offenders themselves and the settings of the copycat.

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However, there were those who did not fall under the mob mentality, meaning the Lindholm argument isn’t a complete one in this case.  The obvious exception is that not all of the girls in the reported schools were afflicted by the “disease.”  More than that, however, medical professionals refused (in most cases) to accept that the children were actually ill, resorting to their reasoning, rather than their emotional and animal responses.  Specifically, Nelson Pereira, director of the National Institute of Medical Emergencies, went on the record to dismiss the case, proving that he did not fall under the spectrum of mob-mentality. So here, we have two contradictory cases where the neocortex was not suppressed under a mob mentality.

Arthur Miller, Charles Lindholm, and Brian Levack all give explanations for cases of mass hysteria.  In The Crucible, Miller shows his audience how panic can be manipulated to benefit those who create and perpetuate it.  Lindholm believes that mob-mentality spreads as it does due to the neurological structure of the human brain.  Levack, however, provides an explanation that is neither biological or dismissive of an event’s validity.  

He holds that in such cases (medieval demoniacs, puritan girls in colonial Salem, or modern students who follow a soap opera), the “victims” of the hysteria are acting out social roles that have been created for them by society.  They are not making their situations up, nor are they at the whim of a predetermined action of the brain.  In the case of the Strawberries with Sugar virus, this social role theory provides a better explanation of what happened, and ends up qualifying Miller and, most importantly, Lindholm’s mob-mentality theories.

Looking further at Levack’s argument, it becomes apparent that in all three cases (the Portuguese students, the demoniacs, and Miller’s characters), the afflicted and the observers were following a variant of a universal social script established for teenagers in times of trauma. As seen in The Crucible, the young women of Salem act out to gain power and some control over their own lives while existing within a strict theocratic society. Abigail in particular uses her newfound influence in an effort to play out her forbidden romantic fantasies, and the town officials follow their roles by colluding with her false accusations. John Proctor alone serves as the token qualifier to Lindholm’s argument amidst the hysteria. This script was prevalent throughout Europe in the early modern era, and when Reverend Hale brings his weighty books to Salem, he plays his part by exacerbating a long established fear of witches. Levack presents their origins in apocalyptic scriptures, taking the origin of the social script to the very root of Christianity itself. From then on, demoniacs, often teenage girls dealing with illicit desires and societal pressure, turned to widely circulated pamphlets and stories recounting the latent social scripts.

In modern times, the script is adapted on the surface but primarily remains the same. The Catholic Church, no longer the primary purveyor of indoctrination, has been replaced by television dramas as a means of conveying the roles teens are supposed to play. In this case, the script followed was a literal screenplay for a soap opera, but the messages behind the teens acting are relatively similar to that of the demoniacs. Today, teens find their expected behaviors broadcast straight to their homes nightly - everything from how to deal with stress to how to deal with sexual desires is directly played out on television.  As was the case with the Strawberries with Sugar virus, some teens will cathartic consumption of this media too far and mimic the behaviors what they’ve seen on TV. As Levack asserts, they are ultimately, whether consciously or unwittingly, playing out social scripts.

Nelson Pereira, director of the National Institute of Medical Emergencies.