Don't feel bad: Why you like reading this - Brain chemistry clue

G.S.Mudur, TT, : New Delhi, Aug. 28: Brain chemistry similar to what is activated by food or sex and an underlying urge in most people to fathom what confounds them may explain the public fascination for violent crime, including the Sheena Bora murder.Researchers say the brain appears to process aggression and violence through its reward circuits and people tend to view violent crimes, especially murder, as an intellectual challenge that stirs them into wondering about the victim, the perpetrator and the circumstances.

Some experts believe murder cases allow members of the public to be voyeurs and live vicariously through the crime.

"They don't have to personally experience the loss or suffering of the murder victim, but can experience the chills down the spine, the revulsion, the disgust and the horror," said Ruth Penfold-Mounce, a sociologist at the University of York in the UK who has studied public obsession with death and murder.

"Effectively, people can experience the murder story without the consequences," Penfold-Mounce told The Telegraph . "They feel safe and there is a desire to see justice - a successful conviction reinforces public faith in the legal system."

A US-based forensic psychologist who has written about human fascination for murder says people analysing murder cases appear to be driven by a desire to determine whether they could find themselves in similar situations.

"People wonder about the circumstances, they search for reasons why they are not likely to find themselves in a similar situation or why they do not face a similar threat," said Paul Mattiuzzi from Sacramento, California, an expert in criminal forensic psychology.

People's attempts to understand murder may also stem from an urge to protect themselves from similar circumstances. The suspected involvement of family merely amplifies the interest and the urgency to comprehend the event.

"Such cases violate some of our fundamental assumptions about the world, such as the belief that you are always safe among family members," Mattiuzzi told this newspaper. "We assume people are fundamentally good, and we're perplexed and confounded when we observe good people do bad things. If we fail to understand how something happened, then we will never be able to predict and prevent such horrors."

But biochemical mechanisms within the brain may also underlie the human interest in violence and aggression. Scientists at the Vanderbuilt University in the US had seven years ago shown through studies on laboratory mice that the brain responds to aggression through what they call the dopamine pathway, reward circuits in the brain that get activated by food, sex or narcotic drugs.

"An individual will intentionally seek out an aggressive encounter solely because they experience a rewarding sensation from it," Craig Kennedy, the researcher who had led the experiments, had said then through a media release.

Public attention also spikes when celebrities are involved.

"Troubles about celebrities gain attention because they allow us to feel better about our own lives," said Elizabeth Crisp Crawford, an associate professor of communication at the North Dakota State University in the US. "Also, as much as people like to see celebrities glorified, the public also delights in seeing them brought down."

Across the world, social scientists and communications experts have observed that interest in crimes is heightened when well-known or celebrity figures are involved.

"The most heinous of crimes coupled with the rich and famous double the impact," Penfold-Mounce said.

But extremely violent crimes can generate sustained interest even without celebrity involvement. Researchers cite the 1993 Lorena Bobbit case in the US, an incident in which Lorena severed her husband John's penis with a kitchen knife. "Neither person was famous at the time, but the nature of the domestic crime was so sensational that it dominated the news media for years," said Crawford.

The murder of Aarushi Talwar, a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Noida in May 2008, and the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist in Delhi in December 2012 are also crimes that have generated intense public attention without celebrity victims or perpetrators.