The Psychology of JonBenet Ramsey - (Chap 2 - Child Pageants)
Added 2025-10-08 11:00:10 +0000 UTCDr Kirk Honda and Humberto Castaneda dive deep into the JonBenet Ramsey story.
00:00 Pageant interview
06:36 Ramsey family history
24:18 Check in with yourself
27:35 The Ramsey's maintain their innocence
36:26 Dr. Kirk's pageant opinions
56:27 What does the research say?
1:47:47 Pageant Tough or Bluff?
1:55:48 What's covered next?
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October 8, 2025
The Psychology In Seattle Podcast ®
Trigger Warning: This episode may include topics such as assault, trauma, and discrimination. If necessary, listeners are encouraged to refrain from listening and care for their safety and well-being.
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Comments
Hahaha omg this is hilarious and a great cocktail party conversation starter
Bunny Rosenberg
2025-10-25 10:10:11 +0000 UTCMy general rule of thumb for anything is to criticize the industry, the people making money, making rules and potentially creating a high pressure and high cost environment. Generally, people are trying to do good and so are all those parents. I don't think they killed her cause the mom liked pageants. The richness is more of a red flag to me!
Colleen
2025-10-23 07:10:15 +0000 UTCI'm in the beginning and it gives me creeps when JonBenét is on stage at 3:38 and the text appears: "Her ambition is to marry someone just like her dad." Who is this text for? Who is the audience of these competitions? Edit: why is exactly this clip inserted after that at 4:15 with her tongue pushing her cheek when any clip with her smiling, even not smiling, could have been more flattering? Am I seeing things?
Helen
2025-10-18 08:46:49 +0000 UTCMethinks Dr. Kirk is a little bias about beautiful nature. Reminds me of the constant disagreement between my husband and I about the very same thing. You Seattleites and your mountain. ;) Loved the episode!
Chelsee Alcantara
2025-10-15 17:11:11 +0000 UTCThe study about body image and self esteem in people who participated in dance is really interesting. I showed horses in college (in a discipline that is judged subjectively based on the riders form and control of the horse) and we would openly talk about getting the “skinnier and prettier” points. Those of us who weren’t tall and thin so would pay extra attention to makeup to balance it. This is an issue in almost every subjectively judged women’s event.
Shannon
2025-10-12 18:34:38 +0000 UTC1:15:05- this is actually part of dance culture! As a person who danced in multiple studios and went to performing art high school, this has been my experience accross the board. I'd guess that this the for the outcomes of the study Kirk was talking about.
Rorey
2025-10-11 22:14:20 +0000 UTCInteresting!
Psychology In Seattle
2025-10-11 20:21:28 +0000 UTCThanks! Yeah, this wasn't an argument. People can disagree and debate. That's the nature of inquiry and wisdom.
Psychology In Seattle
2025-10-11 20:20:48 +0000 UTCI didn't defend beauty pageants. I said that I don't think they're a good idea.
Psychology In Seattle
2025-10-11 20:19:59 +0000 UTCI love love love your "Psychology Of" series. Watching you and Humberto have a thoughtful and empathetic discussion about these true crime topics is so refreshing. Humberto has done an AMAZING job compiling the information for this and the Menendez series. I will admit, watching you two argue or even have a difference of opinion can make me feel a kind of way because I admire your friendship. It also reminds me a lot of when my husband and I are discussing a topic that we have different perspectives about. Most of the time, I know we would 100% be on the same side if we were arguing against someone with a totally different world view. But because we think so similarly, those debates can become long and tiring because we are trying to negotiate what our disagreement actually is. However, after you shared the emotional argument you and Humberto had a while ago, I feel much more at ease hearing you argue about things, because I know you will care for each other anytime someone feels like their voice isn't being heard. Please keep doing what you are doing by having honest and empathetic debates! It's such a good model for the rest of us, especially when discussing a topic with such a social taboo, that you treat each other with respect and assume best intentions. That's something that is hard to do, even with our loved ones!
Jennifer
2025-10-11 18:03:52 +0000 UTCI'm quite perplexed to hear Kirk defend beauty pageants (I though a lot a bout the word 'defend' and I do think it's appropriate here). There was a lot of whataboutism. What about dance? Well... The culture around dance competition can be harmful for sure, and we should absolutely act on it. But dance is not inherently problematic. Dancing is fun, and it's something kids naturally want to do. Compare that to being parade so they can be judged on looks. And no, I don't think we can say beauty pageants are not primarily about beauty, when it's in the name. What skills do children learn? How to stay still for long periods of time while they get their hair and make up done? Something that's really hard for toddlers. How to smile at adults so they'll think they're the prettiest one? Another whataboutism: what about children who wear swimsuits at the beach? Yeah, they wear it so they can swim and have fun at the beach. Compare that to wearing a costume so that the adult judges can rate how you look. Last one: what about the whole culture around sexualizing young girls? Yeah, that's also problematic. We can care about many things at once. Eliminating beauty reagents won't solve the problem, but it sure will help. Also, sexualizing kids is not only harmful when a pedophile is in the room. It teaches girls to view themselves and other girls as sexual objects to be judged by others, mostly men. I wonder if, consciously or unconsciously, Kirk was influenced by this project on beauty pageants. He previously spoke against other problematic industries, such as child actors, and didn't seem to look for excuses for it as much as he's doing here. Again, quite perplexed
Viqui
2025-10-11 12:36:34 +0000 UTCI agree. The culture around ballet can be toxic, but dancing itself can be fun. Besides what you mentioned, kids learn about their bodies, gain strength, learn coordination, etc. Beauty reagents (they're call beauty reagents for god's sake) only teach how to be 'pretty' to adults. What!?
Viqui
2025-10-11 11:37:19 +0000 UTCIt would be interesting to compare the “pretty woman” child costume/routine to a “ladies man” or “womanizer” costume we sometimes see on young boys. Both feel wrong, but I think they evoke a different response.
Kelsey
2025-10-11 02:49:13 +0000 UTCFun fact about Country Roads: It was originally written about Montgomery County, Maryland, but it didn’t have the same ring to it so he changed it to WV. As a born-and-bred Marylander, I can say that Maryland is even less impressive than WV.
Jacquelyn Wolf
2025-10-10 18:14:54 +0000 UTCThis whole discussion about beauty pageants and dance moves makes me really want to see Dr. Kirk react to the movie "Les Mignonnes" (or "Cuties" from 2020). I'm just afraid that he might draw a lot of negative attention, since some people are so incredibly offended by that movie and absolutely will not accept any nuanced perspective on it. If Dr. Kirk did react to it, it would also be interesting to hear him talk about the cultural difference between Europeans and US Americans regarding their opinions on this movie as well as the difference in how the movie was advertised in Europe and in the US (which I think caused a lot of the prejudice against it in the US).
MeriGo_round
2025-10-10 07:09:41 +0000 UTCThere's a big difference between 2 children attacking another unknown child and a 9 year old slaughtering his little sister inside his own home.
Tara Daktyl
2025-10-09 21:01:47 +0000 UTCThose are interesting insights to those characters. Good catch.
Tara Daktyl
2025-10-09 20:55:41 +0000 UTCI’ve always been disturbed by girl’s gymnastics outfits that are high cut leotards, while boys wear loose pants.
Lauren King
2025-10-09 16:56:09 +0000 UTCI agree. West Virginia is beautiful. Does not even hold a candle to western Washington.
Lauren King
2025-10-09 15:27:56 +0000 UTCThat’s my favorite part of watching Love is Blind first and then watch Kirk tell the future. Very fun to watch.
Lauren King
2025-10-09 15:26:48 +0000 UTCI think a concern I personally would have when it comes to these pageants is the way it affects these girls' perception of what being a girl/woman means insofar as the reinforcement of many different sexist notions we have around how women ought behave. When it comes to dance - I actually 100% agree with Humberto as well - I do think it's problematic. For me it comes down to what I noted before. Anecdotally, I grew up as one of maybe 2 girls in my class (that had maybe 15-20 girls) to not have been put into dance class. I then also saw how in middle school our PE classes compared to the boys' further reflected that - the boys would run, play soccer, basketball - whereas the girls would do stuff like gymnastics and dance. There was this overall thing of women needing to do things that are more aesthetic, soft and elegant. As an example - I worked for sometime in an after school program with 10 year olds, and also talked to another woman who did a similar job - and a very worrying thing I saw was girls' fixation and worry from an extremely young age around their body hair. And this was often under zero pretense that it was even due to the girls' wants rather than the parents'. Also it is obviously anecdotal, but in my case these were actually not people like those Kirk described - that come from a conservative area - it's a fairly middle of the road to slight liberal leaning area and homes that are upper middle class. These are all, of course, issues we have in our society regardless. I'm by no means saying that stopping these will stop these social pressures we put on women, but rather that it can somewhat lessen it, and hopefully at the very least lessen the amount of it that young girls feel, as they are somewhat better equipped to deal with it later on.
Naamah ML
2025-10-09 04:12:24 +0000 UTCI think the difference between dance and beauty pageants is that it is SKILL focussed. Yes, kids may have the same outcomes in regards to those things mentioned (apparently from 2 studies.. maybe not enough data to make conclusions really??), however learning a skill takes a lot of commitment and dedication, plus they’re learning pattern recognition and working on memory skills. (I’m a classical musician and very grateful as an adult that I had something like this to focus on as a kid)
Alexandra Castle
2025-10-09 01:01:46 +0000 UTCI remember when I was a kid I was TOLD that my cousin developed early (around 8 years old) from my mom gossiping about how that's abnormal and it must be from hormones in beef
April Granzow
2025-10-08 21:12:28 +0000 UTCI can see your perspective on a kid in a bikini at the beach (though I’d argue it’s way different than an organized display of a child for an audience)…BUT swim classes are critical for children. The leading cause of death for children under 5 is drowning. Children who know how to swim can still drown if an adult isn’t paying attention. A child who doesn’t know how to swim and an adult isn’t supervising them in a pool WILL drown. I know it was just a casual analogy, but I think the lifesaving component of the activity puts it in a different category completely. I completely understand the point you’re trying to convey and I’m not critical of the off the cuff comment but wanted to add this layer to it. A kid in a swimsuit is an EASY and thing to draw a comparison to. Yet, I’ve had three friends lose their kids to drowning and felt compelled to call out the distinction between the two activities.
Bunny Rosenberg
2025-10-08 20:32:16 +0000 UTCI believe that both Buster Bluth from Arrested Development and David Rose from Schitt’s Creek did pageants as part of their characters’ lore. It’s a joke, but I think it shows that we have a cultural stereotype that mothers with narcissistic traits tend to pressure their kids into performing in pageants. I’m curious what Kirk thinks about that
Eliza Rowley
2025-10-08 20:18:23 +0000 UTCPut another way, like all blind spots we have about our gendering of women, particularly white womanhood. it’s teaching these girls a skill alright. Like what are you teaching these girls? Sign them girls up for real sports or music and teach them some real discipline and skills. From the outs looking in, it almost seems like it’s implicit that white womanhood in these circles especially have a level of uselessness baked with an expectation of husband on the horizon later on. Unless these people are also signing up their boys to prance around on stage you can’t convince me otherwise. What story are you telling your daughter with her sexualised outfit? What story are you telling your daughter about herself? The kids like it as adults because America has infantilised half of its population and it’s part of white womanhood.
A
2025-10-08 20:10:57 +0000 UTCI share similar biases about beauty pageants, and I think that even if the outfits aren’t sexualized, it seems like an indoctrination into being objectified and into the idea that your value depends on how completely you can please others.
Eliza Rowley
2025-10-08 20:04:26 +0000 UTCI don’t know, swim is discipline about technique, the water has its will, kid must learn skills to overcome. Planet is covered with water, these skills can mean literal survival and kids are so drawn to water. Pageants deserve our cultural ire IMO. It’s weird to have kid sit down under a hot and loud hair dryer, wake up early, not to prepare for competition dependent on their reflexes, but train on how to smile. I don’t even want or expect my service workers to learn skills of forced smiling. I call myself cis het woman, but sh*** like this insults me as a woman and lowkey gives me a mild gender dysphoria. There are so many aspects to gender as a settler colonial artefact that conditions women to be and act useless.
A
2025-10-08 19:58:21 +0000 UTCThe incredible thing about this format is that we get to see how bloody perceptive Kirk is
Sarah
2025-10-08 16:14:35 +0000 UTCThe police rant was hilarious and fabulous
Sarah
2025-10-08 16:09:37 +0000 UTCI’ve always thought Burke did it. See the Jamie Bulgur murder in the UK. Of course it’s possible. Those 10 year old kids did far, far worse to a two year old.
Sarah
2025-10-08 16:09:00 +0000 UTCI feel the same way about pageants as I do all controlled activities for children, they really don’t mix well for me. There is something so toxic about being in an environment where you’re constantly judged for how good you are - real or not. Everyone wants to be the best. Not support their team, not be good leaders, or vibes, just the best. It starts with the parents and the kids, from my experience, aren’t healthy in a multitude of ways. My daughter did competitive dance for 2 years as a late teen and this is what I saw. The whole thing broke my heart. When she aged out we took off and never looked back. I can’t even imagine doing that to my kid starting age 5. EDIT - I’m so glad to see that info about dance in there. My experience was validated just slightly.
Choley Chole
2025-10-08 15:24:15 +0000 UTCWhat was the purpose of the ransom note if the body never left the house?
Cynthia White
2025-10-08 14:44:17 +0000 UTCI was in a pageant when I was 2 years old. I don't remember it at all (obviously), but I got 2nd place and my parents told me I lost to a little boy in a cowboy outfit lol
Haley Kukan
2025-10-08 13:42:15 +0000 UTCI had to show my boyfriend the police rant because it sounded word for word like something he would say 🤣 it was awesome.
Haley Kukan
2025-10-08 11:40:02 +0000 UTC
