Zero Hour Columbine Psychological Perspectives

Garret Miller
Perspectives Essay
In the “Zero Hour Columbine” video, the behaviors of Erik Harris and Dylan Klebold are driven or understood through three different perspectives, Psychodynamic, Behavioral, and the Cognitive perspective. Each perspective has terms that help explain the reaction and actions of the two murderous teens. These perspectives allow us to get into the minds of these two boys to try and understand them, so this event doesn’t happen again. One of the perspectives that can be used to analyze the two boys is Behavioral perspective. Behavioral perspective is how we learn observable responses. In the video Erik shows change through his observable behavior, talking about his actions felt like they were all in a movie, like he was better than everyone else, and over time his attitude towards life started to get more and more aggressive and violent until he finally snapped. Through high school both Dylan and Erik were bullied immensely. Through this we can see stimulus and responses. As both boys continued to get bullied their actions and attitudes became
This perspective looks at how we encode, process, store, and gain information. Both Dylan and Erik hated their school with a passion, not just the jocks in the school but all the other kids that just bothered them. Now their thought process was that they wanted to be remembered as heroes or Gods for the crimes they commit. Along with that they both made a conscious choice, or decision that they were going to try and destroy Columbine at all cost because of all the harassing and bullying they went through. In everybody’s mind Dylan and Erik’s rationality was obviously skewed. Both students were killing their own classmates and teachers because they were bullied or treated unfairly which is completely irrational. The cognitive perspective is a key factor in showing us how these students were thinking and planning this