This is a case study about a group robbery and knife murder took place in Devon, UK, at November 21st, 2013. The leader of group, Mr. A, travelled with two henchmen to attack a drug dealer who he believed had £20,000 in cash. Mr. A, stabbed the victim and inflicted several slashes across the top of his victim's head before the group left the victim dying from loss of blood. One of the causes of Mr. A’s crime is sadism. Sadism is the technical term for enjoying harming other individuals (Blaney & Millon, 2009). Mr. A has demonstrated obvious pleasure and amusement. After disabled the victim, Mr. A decided to carve his victim’s head ‘into a chessboard”. Mr. A had also boasted his “experience with murder”, as well as his “trophy”—the victim’s head, in a local curry house. Mr. A’s actions were not simply aimed to kill the victim, but to inflict pain on him. As Mr. A has clearly admitted during the court trial that he “enjoyed the killing”, he has derived pleasure from hurting the victim. …show more content…
A’s actions. Group polarization refers to the tendency for groups to make more extreme decisions than the initial inclination of its members (Stoner, 1961). According to the court record, Mr. A initially wanted to “only rob the dealer”, instead of killing him. However, he claimed that the other members were worried that the dealer may retaliate, and suggested that they should kill the dealer. The other members admitted their suggestion during the court trail. In this case, Mr. A was clearly influenced by his group member, and that his initial decision, to rob the dealer, was pushed to extreme under the influence of the