Factors Affecting Antisocial Behavior

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INTRODUCTION Many studies have suggested that antisocial behavior, which is behavior that is often characterized by hostility and intentional aggression toward others, is a precursor of criminal behavior. Criminal behavior refers to the commission of an unlawful act. It has always been an interesting aspect of psychology to study due to the ongoing debate between nature and nurture. Is it the genetic makeup of an individual that’s responsible for making them a criminal or is it the environment that determines one’s criminality? Over many years of research, there have been many studies that focused on biological factors, environmental factors or both at the same time. Numerous studies have suggested that both genes and environment are important when it comes to an individual’s criminal behavior. This conclusion comes from various family, twin and adoption studies along with theories derived from experiments. Also, some of the research shows a vast amount of evidence that the two factors interact. If one has a genetic predisposition for …show more content…

One of them states that MZ twins often have a more common environment compared to DZ twins. People in their environment might treat identical twins in a more uniform way than fraternal twins which may cause concordance rates in monozygotic twins become artificially raised (Allen 1976). The research states that as a result of that kind of upbringing, the higher concordance rates in monozygotic twins can be a cause of environmental factors rather than genetic factors. Grove et al. (1990) conducted a study on thirty-two pairs of MZ twins separated shortly after they birth. It was found that there were some significant heritability rates during childhood (41%) as well as adulthood (28%). That evidence shows that the twins’ behavior could not have been caused or affected by being raised in a common environment since all of the twins were reared apart after