Nature And Nurture In Criminal Behavior Essay

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Nature and nurture has been a longstanding debate in the psychological community. While some believe that our personality is inherited others believe it is formed. Nature is the philosophy that we acquire our characteristics from our parents or relatives while nurture says our environment and outward stimuli shape us. This particularly comes into play when discussing the role of criminal behavior in an individual. What makes someone have criminal tendencies, can it be blamed on their genetic code or is it a result of their surroundings? Researchers say that criminal behavior is a result of both nature and nurture interacting together. This relationship between nature and nurture in the case of criminal behavior was proven by a researcher named Avshalom Caspi. In 2002, Caspi and his colleagues conducted a longitudinal study of children who possessed a gene said to hinder the production of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase (MAO). This enzyme, MAO, when not produced properly can result in an increased risk of someone developing into a violent criminal. Caspi and his colleagues studied children who had committed violent crimes and some who had not, all …show more content…

Children who only possessed the gene without the factor of maltreatment, and even those who did not posses the gene but were maltreated, were not at risk. These findings helped illustrate gene-environment interaction, which states that the effects of a gene are dependent upon the environment in which they are expressed. This investigation concluded that genetics is not the sole cause of criminal behavior, while a gene may increase the risk of becoming a violent criminal it has to be accompanied by a bad environment in order to produce results . Caspi was able to deduce through research that nature and nurture work hand in hand where criminal behavior is

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