Genetics
Today we live in a society unlike any before. This world also provides us with a great many more influences than in the past. By simply turning on a television we leave our minds open to infinite forms of influence. Even with cars and planes we can now cover far greater ground and extend our reach beyond simply our families and hometowns. Parents try to bring their children up as righteous model citizens, yet children constantly witness examples which tell them different. Certainly our environment is a major contributor to our behavior. But what explains the irrational actions people make which go against their environment? All human beings are built up of a genetic code which defines our characteristics. While it defines our physical characteristics, it is also defining to some extent our behavior. This defining of our behavior dictates our tendencies toward certain aspects of life, including the body's ability to express aggressive behavior. With all the attention current events have drawn on the topic of adolescent violence, it is time to answer the question, to what degree will our genes dictate our tendencies toward violent behavior? While a wide range of social and psychological studies are needed, the best fir
Therefore, does a persons predisposition toward violence manifest itself physically with certain distinct traits? The people of medieval England felt so sure they could of this relation that they had a law which stated, "If two persons fall under suspicion of a crime, the uglier or more deformed was to be regarded as more guilty" (Feldman 139). There is a trait known as "impulsivity," which is supposedly caused by "bad brain chemistry, caused in turn by bad genes" (Overbye). As many of the examples showed, there were tendencies for certain people to be drawn toward violence, more so than others. Still, Gluek and Gluek's test has shown a relationship between the mesomorphs and criminal behavior while no conclusions can be backed up with facts regarding the relationship between the facial figures of a healthy individual and their relationship to a particular type of crime. This person was not a criminal and was of average intelligence, but more reports of the same anomaly followed and were linked to "excessive aggressiveness" (Andrews & Bonta 126). st step toward solving the problem would be to investigate the genetic influences. Their study was based on the physical build of three different categories of males which Feldman defines. Serotonin is one of several chemical messengers which transmit signals between nerve cells (Overbye). These impulsive people who have the trait lack the ability to break down the neurotransmitter serotonin, which builds up during flight-or-fight situations (Overbye). Although an experiment such as this cannot be deliberately performed, a very similar situation already exists. Still these studies were for the most part dismissed because of problems involving the quality of the test groups (Feldman 140). The results of the researcher's examination found that "60% of monozygotic twins shared similar delinquent and criminal behavior patterns, while only 30% of dizygotic twins were similarly related" (Siegel & Senna 97). Now, fostering someone's existing predisposition toward violence is not something positive at all. Although it produced some concrete results, it does not reckon with parents with criminal tendencies who have never been charged with crimes. The army was looking for soldiers who would work well on a battlefield.
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Acceptance Essays
