In Dugard's case, 18 years with the Garridos is longer than she had lived with her own family. The longer you are held captive, the more likely you are to bond with your captor, Carll said. "That combined with the terror of what could happen sets the stage for wanting to please the abductor, and eventually feeling positive toward the abuser as a way of coping." "Whenever an abuser shows acts of kindness toward you, it shows you some hope that you will survive," Carll told LiveScience. In truth, Stockholm syndrome appears to be relatively common among the few cases of long-term kidnapping that have been publicized. Many people like to think they would be more objective in such a situation, and would have tried harder than Dugard to escape, but those kind of accusations are part of a persistent problem of blaming the victim, said New York trauma psychologist and author Elizabeth Carll.
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"But the thing is that our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are largely governed by unconscious and irrational processes." "The only reason people question whether something like the Stockholm syndrome is real is because it seems so irrational," Mattiuzzi said. While Stockholm syndrome sounds farfetched, it's based on well-known psychological effects. There will be a tendency in your mind to achieve consistency: I'm acting nice to this person because they are nice."
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"In order to survive, you have to act compliant or act nice to your captor. "Imagine you've been kidnapped and are in a situation of genuine threat and terror," Mattiuzzi explained in an e-mail. It's hard for people to think of a product as worthless, and think of themselves as smart consumers, at the same time, so they often come to think of their purchases as being worth more than they would if they hadn't bought the item.Įven in the more complex case of kidnapping, cognitive dissonance can come into play. A mundane example is the tendency of people to value a product more highly after they buy it. One reason people may develop sympathy for their captors is a psychological idea called cognitive dissonance: When people recognize inconsistent views within themselves, they tend to alter their thinking to remove the conflict. Hearst, who was 19 at the time, apparently came to sympathize with the group and even participated in a bank robbery with them. Other famous cases include Patty Hearst, a rich heiress who was kidnapped in 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army, an American terrorist group. In that case the hostages resisted rescue, refused to testify against the robbers and even raised money for their legal defense. The phenomenon is called Stockholm syndrome, after a 1972 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, where bank employees held hostage for six days ultimately bonded with their captors.