Antisocial Personality Disorder Essay

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John Wayne Gacy, Tim Bundy, and Ottis Toole are all infamous serial killers that suffered from a certain disorder. That disorder is called antisocial personality disorder. The biggest question that we have for these men is what triggered these non-empathetic men to commit such heinous crimes, was it mostly biology based or environment? Or do both factors share an equal amount of blame? When it comes to what is the exact cause of antisocial personality disorder, researchers and scientists are unable to come into an agreement. More or less, scientists agree that this personality disorder is caused by a combination of environmental and biological factors. While most scientists are able to agree what environmental conditions serve as precursors for a child to develop antisocial personality disorder characteristics in life, the problem continues to be what internal chemical imbalances are occurring to create this disorder. This ongoing question has been thrown to the public to ponder over for many years. At this time, there are no guarantee of wrong or completely right answers, but only theories to the causation of the disorder. By examining multiple biological theories, along with their fallacies (if any are presented) will we detect what the most probable cause is for this disorder. Before proceeding on what antisocial personality disorder is, along with its debatable biological causes, it is important to understand the criteria for a personality disorder. According to the manual used to diagnose psychological disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, describes personality disorders are ongoing mental illnesses that continue to dramatically affect an individuals’ life. The disorder involves feelings, i... ... middle of paper ... ...fusion sets in when determining if these changes were present before the disorder took place or not. There is not sufficient research that has been conducted at the early stages of antisocial personality disorder to better understand the direct biological causes. Nor are there enough studies based off of women, most studies are male dominated. I would like to figure out how much a role does a women’s testosterone level have with a low amount of serotonin and high amount of cortisol have in causing antisocial personality disorder. Studies should be equally performed on both sexes to determine what biological traits the sexes have in common. Maybe that would help clear confusion. Only with further research conducted in the future, can we fully understand how this neurotransmitter along with other chemical imbalances rewires the brain into unsavory personality disorder.

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