Individual Project 1 PSYC120-1201A-35: Psychology and Understanding Human Behavior: The Individual
June 10, 2014

For the purposes of this assignment and the ones that follow, I have chosen to select Mike Tyson as my subject. It is my belief that his troubled childhood, meteoric rise to fame and fortune, and his often-controversial behavior in and out of the ring makes for an interesting character worthy of analysis.
Michael Gerard Tyson was born June 30, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York. He was only two years old when his father, Jimmy Kirkpatrick abandoned the family, leaving his mother, Lorna Tyson to take care of Mike and his two siblings, Rodney and Denise. She had a great deal of financial difficulty in supporting her family, and eight years later, she was forced to move her family into the tough, crime-ridden Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Tyson, small and shy, was often the target of bullying. To combat this, young Michael began developing his own style of street fighting, and graduated from this to criminal activity. His gang, known as the Jolly Stompers, assigned him to clean out cash registers while older members held victims at gunpoint. He was only 11 at the time. He frequently ran into trouble with police over his petty criminal activities, and by the age of 13 he had been arrested more than 30 times. (Biography, 2012)
His behavior eventually landed him in Tryon School for Boys, a tough reform school in upstate New York. It was here that he was introduced to boxing through counselor Bob Stewart, a former amateur champion. In exchange for Tyson staying out of trouble and working harder in school, Stewart agreed to teach him how to box. Tyson learned quickly and practiced diligently, even slipping out past curfew to train in the dark. In 1980, Stewart introduced Tyson to legendary boxing manager Constantine "Cus" D'Amato, who had a gym in Catskill, New York.
D’Amato was impressed with the young fighter, taking him under his wing. He mentored Tyson, becoming in a sense the father he never had. When Tyson was paroled from Tryon at the age of 14, D’Amato took him in. He sent Tyson to Catskill High School, and gave him rigorous in-ring training in the evening. Tyson also fought in amateur and non-sanctioned matches, honing his craft against older opponents.
However in 1982, Tyson suffered a major setback. First, his mother passed away after a struggle with cancer. "I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something," he later told reporters. "She only knew of me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally." (Biography, 2011) After a triumphant pro debut in March 1985, knocking his opponent out in one round, Tyson’s world was turned upside down again with D’Amato’s death later that year. He continued on, though the impact of that tragedy stayed with him. He won the WBC heavyweight championship at the age of 20, becoming the youngest champion in history. On August 1 he became the first heavyweight to own all three major boxing belts when he won the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title from Tony Tucker. (Biography, 2011) Young, wealthy, famous, and bereft of the any real grounding influences, Tyson partied hard, and his professional career and his personal life began to pay the price. Tyson's winning streak came to an end on February 11, 1990, however, when he lost his championship belt to boxer Buster Douglas in Tokyo, Japan. In July of 1991, Tyson was accused of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black American contestant. On March 26, 1992, after nearly a year of trial proceedings, Tyson was found guilty on one count of rape and two counts of deviant sexual conduct. Because of Indiana state laws, Tyson was ordered to serve six years in prison, effective immediately. (Biography, 2011) This effectively spelled the end of his success, and he never reclaimed his former glory. After a long series of hard-fought wins and harder losses, arrests, lawsuits, and bankruptcy, Tyson retired from boxing in 2005. While he did step back into the ring, earning money in exhibition fights, he never went any further. Tyson's life seemed to mellow over the next few years, and the boxer began seeking sobriety by attending Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. But in 2009, Tyson was dealt another blow when his four-year-old daughter, Exodus, accidentally strangled herself on a treadmill cord in her mother's Phoenix home. The tragedy was yet another dark period in Tyson's troubled life. (Biography, 2011) I have chosen to use the humanistic theory as a frame of reference to analyze Tyson’s behavior in terms of his drive to perfect his craft, and the violent, aggressive behaviors that cost him so dearly in his life and career. It is my theory that Tyson’s early abandonment by his own father, the tragic loss of his two sole role models, and a childhood spent in a harsh, violent neighborhood left in him an unfulfilled need for belonging, love, and self-esteem. I feel this unfulfilled need left him with something to prove, driving him to become the best boxer he could possibly be. He trained hard and triumphed again and again, reaching the pinnacle of his career early. Tyson was the youngest champion in history to unify all three belts, and his dogged, determined work ethic must have had a lot to do with that.
However, having reached the top so young, there was professionally little left to strive for. And with the need for approval still unmet, he attempted to satisfy that need in relationships he was perhaps emotionally unprepared for. Without any solid concept of self, he was thrust into a life that offered him anything he could want, at the cost of his private, true self. I feel that his frustration and insecurity led him down the path of spousal abuse, drugs, violence, and sexual assault.
It is difficult to accurately gauge his MBTI profile, but based on what I do know of Tyson, I would guess he was an INTJ. He set his goal on being the best boxer, but he achieved it too soon, I think. Although he only suffered six losses in his professional career, I submit he was eventually beaten by the only opponent he could not understand or defeat: himself.

References Mike Tyson. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 07:41, Jan 16, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/mike-tyson-9512980