Alex Murdaugh and the Evolutionary Reason We ’ re Drawn to Violent Crime

If you haven’t heard the name Alex Murdaugh over the course of the past few months, you may just not have been paying attention. The disgraced South Carolina attorney was convicted yesterday of the murder of his wife and son, following a six-week trial that was must-watch TV for much of the nation. Cable news carried Murdaugh’s testimony live and uninterrupted as it unfolded. In its near obsessional public following, the case was in many ways reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, which saw 150 million Americans tune in to learn the verdict on Octal. 3, 1995. But why? What is it about sensational—and often sensationally gruesome—murder trials that fascinates us so? Are humans as a whole and Americans in particular simply morbid, simply voyeurs? Or is there something more complex going on? There is an answer, and it turns out to be equal parts evolution, self-protection and, in some measure, the media attention that cases like Murdaugh’s regularly draw. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Like other animals, we humans are acutely aware of and alert to threats in our environment. The world is a dangerous place and, especially for a soft, slow, unfanged, unclawed—and thus easy to kill—species like ours, it pays to be exceedingly alert to dangers. “Humans, broadly, are built to be intrigued by and alert to potentially dangerous situations,” says psychologist Coltan Scrivner, research scientist at Aarhus Univers...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Psychology Source Type: news