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Nature Vs. Nurture In Criminal Behavior

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Nature versus nurture are two different components that play a big role in the overall development of an individual. Nature is the genetic makeup that an individual inherits from their biological mother and father, and nurture is the environment where that individual is growing and developing. This topic has been a controversial topic for many years, but now that technology has advanced, scientist, psychologist, and investigators can now determine how much of an individual's personality and behaviors is affected by their genetic makeup and their environment. The reason I put investigators in that list is because they are interested in the reasoning behind why people commit crimes. If we look at the nature side of a criminal, you can see the …show more content…

These traits play a big role in a person's behavior and attitude, and that can be seen when looking at a criminal's personality. Criminal's may have inherited traits that cause them to be violent, short tempered, or even just what they like can cause them to commit a crime. Now let's look at the nurture side of a criminal's development. When we are talked about an individual's environment, we are not just talking about where they live. We are talking about what type of parents someone had, and whether the parents were loving and affection it, or were they cold and neglectful. We want to know if this person was enrolled in an advance school system or did they not go to school at all. Knowing what type of people a person hung out with is a factor in nurturing. The lists goes on, but these factors in an individual's environment can also affect how they developed and their personality. If an individual is short temper, has a lower intelligence level, is in a gang, and the parents are always ignoring that individual you can determine that there is a high chance that person will become a

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nurture debate. Yet, he applies his reasoning not in a manner that concludes the prominence of one over the other, but in which Capote ultimately qualifies a murderer (or a mere criminal) as a product of the interaction between his environment as well as his genetics—consequently labeling this a seemingly tragic fate in itself. Amongst the world of psychology, the nature-nurture issue is defined as “the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors,” in which today’s scientific minds see traits and behaviors arising from the simultaneous interaction of both nature and nurture (Myers 9). Rooted and intertwined into essentially every underlying concept and thought-process debated and agreed upon in the psychological sphere, scientists as well as ancient thinkers have long contested the prominence of one’s influence over the other.

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What are the differences between historical biological and contemporary biosocial theories are crime? Contemporary biosocial theories of crime differ greatly from historical biological theories of crime in many ways, the most notable way being their approaches as to the causes of crime. Modern day biosocial theories often stress the importance that the environment has on the causes of crime and likelihood of criminality. Theories like Genetics and Heritability, Body Chemistry, and Biosocial Criminology all take into consideration that and individual's biological makeup isn't the sole determinant of crime. They take into consideration other variables like the environment, nutrition, substance use, pollution, and much more.

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Biological, developmental, and situational perspectives are all critical in influencing criminal behavior. The biological perspective suggests that genetic and neurological factors influence criminal behavior. For example, some individuals may have a genetic predisposition to aggressive behavior or a neurological condition that affects impulse control. This perspective emphasizes the role of biology in shaping behavior. The developmental perspective emphasizes the role of environmental factors, such as upbringing and childhood experiences, in shaping behavior.

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Arguing “nature” seems to give sociopaths a free pass whereas arguing nurture would imply that sociopaths are capable of reversing their condition through hard work and tough therapies but regularly choose not to. The answer however is much more complicated and many psychologists and scientists would in fact argue that sociopathy is a combination of both genes and environment. While there is a clear heritable link amongst anti socials, environment also plays a huge role in triggering particular genes and is highly responsible for the development of almost every individual; sociopath or

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Nature and Nurture Influence on Aggression One psychology debate that remains in today's world is the argument between nature and nurture. Scientists who study behaviors, like psychologists or sociologists, are always arguing about the topic of nature and nurture. Whether nature or nurture plays a more significant role in terms of forming us. Our personality is influenced by many factors in our life, such as the environment or the inherited genes. Some people believe that genes play a bigger part in the formation of our mental traits, such as personality.

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Today, there are proven facts that people who have parents that are criminals have a high chance of becoming criminals themselves. Not only can people become criminals because of their family but they can also become criminals because of the environment that they surround themselves in. This is where nature versus nurture comes into play. A person’s nature is their genetic makeup, basically meaning that a person’s nature is the genes they get from their parents. Also, a person’s genotype, one’s genetic makeup based on the sequencing of the nucleotides we term, provides them with physical traits that set the stage for certain behaviors (56).

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Criminal behaviour has always been an interest for psychologists, for they could never quite come to a conclusion between nature and nurture. Research concerning this topic has been organized for many years and due to the never ending debate, is still being conducted. I have decided to read and write about this myself, for I was genuinely curious about the matter and wanted to be a part of the research, as I felt responsible to do so. I believe that in order to stop something, it must be discussed and scrutinized. What effects do genes have on criminal behaviour, why do peer pressure and habitat influence a person to commit crimes and are men really more violent than women?

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According to Siegel (2015), trait theory is the view that criminality is a product of abnormal biological or psychological traits which can be subdivided into two major categories: those that stress biological makeup and those that stress psychological functioning (p. 109). Biological trait theories includes four different conditions: biochemical, neurophysiological, genetic, and evolutionary. Biochemical factors will include diet, hypoglycemia, hormonal influences, premenstrual syndrome, lead exposure, and environmental contaminants. Neurophysiological factors will include brain structure, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, brain chemistry, and arousal theory. Genetic causes could stem from parental deviance, adoption studies, and

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Psychology Essay Introduction Perhaps, the most complex issue that seems to puzzle philosophers, psychologists and educators for years has been the debate about nature versus nurture. There seems to be a huge divide between the two philosophies as clearly nature refers to the concept of personal characteristics being related biologically and nurture being classed as the influence of the surrounding environment on the persons characteristics. Many questions come to light when considering these factors in psychology.

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Nature vs Nurture, is one of the biggest ongoing debates in the psychology world. Originally termed and defined by, Sir Francis Galton, it was and still is one of the basic concepts of study for psychologist-to-be. The concept of Nature Vs Nature, debates in itself, whether or not, either nature or nurture dictates a person’s mind. While Galton himself favored nature over nurture, even the “Father of behavioral genetics” work has been challenged by many world renowned psychologist. In this essay, I will compare, and contrast the two, and give supporting evidence for each.

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One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. We know that both nature and nurture play important roles in human development, but we have not known yet whether we are developed majorly because of nature or due to nurture. Nature is the coding of genes in each cell in us humans that determines the different traits that we have, such as eye color, hair color, height, and many other traits. The nurture theory holds that genetic influence over abstract traits may exist; however, the environmental factors are the real origins of our behavior. This includes the use of conditioning in order to induce a new behavior to a child, or alter an unlikely behavior being shown by the child.

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The nature vs. nurture debate centers on whether human behaviour and personality are inherited (nature) or acquired (nurture); in other words, whether a person’s environment or a person’s genetic inheritance determines their behaviour and personality. Goldsmith and Harman (1994) adopt a neutral position, in which both nature and nurture influence people, stating that they “believe that the fundamental issue concerns the interplay between characteristics of the individual and of the relationship” (54). Goldsmith and Harman discuss temperament and attachment for infant, with temperament being linked to the nature side of the debate and attachment being linked with the nurture side; as a result, the infant’s temperament influences the attachment bond between the infant and the mother, but the attachment bond influences the temperament of the child as well. Therefore, both nature and nurture interact with each other to produce people’s behaviour (Harman et al. 54). Andersen and Berk (1998) take on the nurture perspective, while Leary (1999) claims that nature is the determining factor of a person’s personality.

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INTRODUCTION NATURE This refers to all the evolutionary factors that have that have shaped the genetics that we inherit from our parents. Nature determine the range of our human potential. Naturists believe that the knowledge humans have about the world is innate. Therefore human development is largely determined by heredity.

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Nature and Nurture Influences on Child Development Karla White ECE 205: Introduction to Child Development Instructor: Alesia Lane October 2, 2017 Nature and Nurture Influences on Child Development Describe the relationship between nature versus nurture. The nature vs. nature debate is the scientific, cultural, and philosophical debate about whether human culture, behavior, and personality are caused primarily by nature or nurture. Nature is often defined in this debate as genetic or hormone-based behaviors. Our genes determine the different traits that we have, such as eye color, hair, ear size, height and other traits.

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It has been a long time since the debate about supremacy of nature and nurture has found its way to the spot as one of the highly disputed questions. Nevertheless, this debate started to be looked from scientific point of view starting from 19th century only. Just recently, psychology has developed as an independent scientific discipline. This explains to us the significance and fundamentalism of the nature-nurture controversy. The main purpose of this polemic was to answer questions like “Why people from the same environment have different characters?”

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