On 1973 Aug 23rd, two criminals attacked a bank(Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstrong in Stockholm) but failed. After police surrounded the bank, several bank employees were held as hostages for six following days (till Aug 28th). When the hostages are rescued, they showed empathy and positive emotion towards the two criminals, at the same time rejection for assistance towards government and police. They even defended their captors. This strange phenomenon aroused great interest among sociologists and psychologists. Why the hostages, originally trapped by the criminals, be good to these captors and even protect them from being arrested? Later, a certain name is defined for this special manifest, labeled as a syndrome, the "Stockholm Syndrome." True stories happen in kidnapping and abuse cases. The victims somehow formed a special bond with the captors at last.
According to Vincent B. (2007), after many case study and comparison, there are four conditions must be fulfilled for a well-diagnosis Stockholm syndrome to form. Firstly, victims' lives must be threatened. The tense of stress must reach the death recognition level (Vincent B., 2007). Secondly, victims' are able to recognize that captors are doing kind behavior some time. It is normal that captors provide food and drink to keep the hostages "useful", but it is not easy for them to recognize this as a kind behavior. But after a certain time of victimization, such feeling will burst out because the captors give all the food you ate. Or we can say, you live because of them. Thirdly, victims don't' have access or limited access to outer space. This will create "isolation" and "de-socialization" (or "de-personalization") when people don't get any information from outside (Vincent, 2007). This will induce the main reason for the syndrome from social psychology perspectives. Lastly, victims must have the belief that, "it is impossible" for them to escape.
