March 6, 2012

Genetic predisposition and physical punishment converge into forging violent behavior in boys

Who could blame them? If your genes include a tendency towards violence and your parents teach you violence by means of violent punishments such as spanking, you will probably behave violently. That's the conclusion of a new study on the matter:

Brian B. Botwell et al., Physical punishment and childhood aggression: the role of gender and gene–environment interplay. Aggressive Behavior 2012. Pay per view. 

However the results appear to show no or very little effect in girls instead:

"It did not affect females," he said. "Males who were spanked and had the highest genetic risks displayed the most aggressive behavior compared to other males."

Source and more details at Science Daily.

4 comments:

  1. "We found that genetic factors affect which children display aggressive behavior, but we also found that genetic factors matter more when children were exposed to spanking as a disciplinary tactic,"

    Worse of is that that boys recieve corperal punishment at four times the rates of girls. Minorities and disabled are also more often at the receiving end.

    http://www.cotwa.info/2012/03/boys-overwhelming-recipients-of.html?m=1

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry, for the triple post. I have no idea why it does that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I did not know that bit, Duadha. I can imagine that boys get punished more often because boys are (arguably) less tame and obedient by nature (varies across individuals also, of course) but as much as four times?!

    "Sorry, for the triple post. I have no idea why it does that".

    It's very strange, the system should only admit one post but maybe if you comment from some gadget like a mobile phone or tablet... the gadget automatically sends it repeatedly if Blogger does not respond soon. My best guess.

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  4. "if you comment from some gadget like a mobile phone or tablet..."

    Yep. Let's see if it does it this time.

    ReplyDelete

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