Outrageous Celebrity

Michael Vick is a professional football player who has done some crazy things.

Psychodynamic- Michael was born in a public housing project in Newport News, Virginia. His neighborhood was financially depressed and filled with crime. He was brought up in a bad situation where his parents basically lived off of welfare while his mother worked two jobs and his dad worked in the shipyards for hours and hours every day. This suggests that Michael's acts of violence were in response to exposure to violence in his childhood and possibly a way to get his emotions out.

Behavioral- Michael has done several inexcusable things such as his dog fighting ring near his home in Virginia. His actions were cruel and violent as he pitted dogs fighting against eachother until death, with people betting for money on the winners. He also has been caught with marijuana several times and has given the middle finger to a crowd of football fans at a 2007 game.

Cognitive- As for the dog fighting incidents, Michael has claimed that he did it primarily for the gambling part of it. He also says that he got no enjoyment out of seeing the dogs tear eachother apart, but that is very hard to believe considering the many other ways of gambling he could have used. Vick's mind was obviously tainted and he had saw things a small kid should not have which may have changed his thinking and outlook on life itself.

Social-Cultural- Michael was born into an area of Newport News and a neighborhood in which drug dealing was a normal day activity. This easily could have influenced him to not look at marijuana in such a negative way. When he was in high school he used it as a way to relieve his problems so as he was having trouble with the dog fighting investigation, he probably used it to forget about everything. His upbringing taught him that violence and drugs are normal, so it is only expected of him to think the same thing.

Humanistic- Michael's parents were not necessarily unloving and bad people, but with his parents working literally sunup to sundown, there was nobody at home to steer him in the right direction. He didn't get the attention and teaching that he needed to succeed in outgrowing his neighborhood problems. Vick may not have felt that he was loved enough so he didn't see how wrong it would be to hurt other creatures. It's not like he didn't see people hurt all the time in his neighborhood.

Neuroscience- Vick's brain has grown accustomed to violence and hurt. He may get the same hyper feeling that he recieves when he plays a football game, as when he sees two pitbulls fighting or a bag of marijuana. Violence and drugs are normal things for him. He has seen violence and he probably wants to try it out himself. His brain is telling him that it is alright and that there won't be any bad consequences. He didn't feel like he would be caught. Since he was in the NFL, he probably felt that he was invincible to the law because he was a sports celebrity.