Winters 1 Cody Winters Winter Advanced Placement Psychology 8 February 2012 Stewart Gilligan Griffin Stewart Griffin is not

the typical two years old and has a very strange home life. Stewie was born in Quahog, Rhode Island and now lives with his parents Peter and Lois, his siblings Megan and Chris, and his dog Brian, who he can communicate with in depth. Stewies father Peter is an irresponsible and likely mentally ill man who works at a brewery and spends most of the rest of his time watching television or at the bar with his friends. Stewie has a very limited relationship with his father and spends most of his time with his mother Lois. Lois is the house wife who does all of the cooking and cleaning as well as taking care of Stewie, she has very serious sexual arousal problems though she functions enough to take care of her children. Stewie has very limited interactions with his brother Chris, who sits in his room whenever not watching television with the family. Megan rarely spends time with the rest of the family due to constant lack of acceptance. Brian is a talking dog and Stewies closest friend due to the fact that he is the only one who Stewie can communicate with to a very great extent. Stewie and Brian go on very strange adventures together with the aid of Stewies extreme intelligence. Stewie has created a time machine as well as an arsenal of weapons to kill Lois and take over the world. Stewie is now seeking help from a psychiatrist because he recently ran a simulation of what it would be like to kill his mother and conquer the world. Stewie has been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder shown by his disregard for social norms; his repeated deceit, his failure to plan ahead, his aggressiveness, his disregard for the

Winters 2 safety of others, and his serious lack of remorse. Stewie repeatedly commits illegal behaviors, such as creating an arsenal of weapons that he intends to use to one day take over the world. He also repeatedly uses nuclear energy in violation of NATO by creating a nuclear missile and powering his time machine with uranium. Stewie is very deceitful towards Brian, the only one who he can communicate with in all extents. He often goes behind Brians back, especially in regards to Brians bulimic girlfriend Jillian. In one episode Stewie goes to dinner with Jillian in order to get her to think she was getting fat and wasnt puking enough. Stewie also pretends to be a female toddler in the national hit series Jolly Farms. For several months Stewie pretends to be a girl, deceiving the entire country until he finally gave in and confessed on live television. Stewie often fails to plan ahead which is demonstrated in the episode that he attempts to kill another toddler by collapsing a lifeguard tower on him. Stewie fails at this attempt and ends up having the tower fall over on himself rather than the target, having a near death experience and demonstrating his lack of the ability to plan ahead. Stewie is extremely aggressive on many occasions, an example is the episode where he has his first birthday and believes that the hired professional (the clown) was here to put him back in the womb. Stewie killed the clown when he showed up at the party. Stewie has an absolute lack of remorse, on his first birthday he killed the clown and shows no signs of any remorse whatsoever in any episode regarding the clown who he took the life of. Stewie demonstrates these five of the seven criteria for antisocial personality disorder while the requirement is at least three. Stewie has extremely antisocial behavior; the cause is likely a mix of nature and nurture. Stewies father, Peter shows several signs of the disorder so it could be a inherited trait. Nature involved could also be Stewies extreme intelligence that allows him to commit many of the behaviors he does, including the creation of weapons and time machines. While many of his

Winters 3 problems are likely caused by nature, Stewie lives in a house where the most sane and socially acceptable individual is a talking dog who has serious drinking problems. Many of Stewies behaviors can be demonstrated similarly by Peter, giving an environmental factor in the development of his disorder. The problem with a environmental factor is that Stewie is two years old and shows the same symptoms from episode one to the most recent. Nurture is likely to have had a slight impact but most of the cause of Stewies disorder is likely to be nature.

Winters 4 Works Cited Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2000. Print. Family Guy. Adult Swim: Television. Geurin, Lynn. "Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale." . Kentucky Dept. of Public Advocacy , 2001. Web. 9 Feb 2012. <http://dpa.state.ky.us/library/manuals/mental/Ch22.html>.