by Matthew Brown
Hostages and kidnapping victims sometimes end up feeling closest to the people that have terrorized them.
In 1973, two men robbed a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. For six days, they held four bank
employees hostage, keeping them at
gunpoint in the
vault. After the
ordeal was over, many people were surprised by the hostages'
reaction. _(1)_
The incident attracted a lot of
media attention, and
psychiatrists came up with a term to describe the hostages' feelings. _(2)_ Captives who display this syndrome tend to sympathize with and
think highly of their captors. Take the case of a man who was one of the hostages on a flight from Athens, Greece in 1985. The two terrorists threatened the passengers
on board with guns, even killing one hostage. _(3)_
Why does Stockholm Syndrome happen? _(4)_ The theory says that a child forms an
emotional attachment to a powerful adult in his or her life, which increases the chance that the adult will protect and care for the child. _(5)_ A Stockholm Syndrome victim
mistakes a lack of
abuse for an act of kindness.
In the heat of the moment, these feelings
make sense, and once the situation is over, victims usually have a good chance of
getting on with their normal lives.
(A) Stockholm
Syndrome is a
psychological shift that happens to
captives when they are
gravely threatened but are also shown acts of kindness by their
captors.
(B) The same may be happening when a captive forms feelings of
attachment to their captor.
(C)
Investigators said that the
hostages sympathized with the bank robbers and
were more
scared of the police.
(D) It occurs as a result of a
primitive feeling of
gratitude, just like something an
infant would experience.
(E) After being
released, however, the man told reporters that the
hostage-takers weren't bad people because they let him eat, sleep, and live to see another day.
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