Behavior genetic studies of children, adolescents, and adults all report that the overlap of antisocial tendencies (broadly defined) with other psychopathic traits (e.g., interpersonal, affective) can be explained by common genetic factors.-Robert Hare, Ph.D.
The most profound things researchers say about reality are often so difficult to understand that the average person wants to turn and run away when the researchers begin to speak. The statement above might have that affect on you but stick around because I want to explain it this week. This statement gets to the heart of the most important controversies regarding sociopathy/psychopathy.
First I will give you a definition of antisocial behavior that one of my students came up with. I think it is very good:
Antisocial behavior means things people intentionally do that infringe on other people’s rights to live their lives. Antisocial behavior is hurtful.
Notice that antisocial behavior is purposeful and reflects the person’s underlying motives. The link to personality lies in this link to motives. Many personality traits are a reflection of an individual’s preferred motives and pleasures.
Antisocial tendencies don’t reflect a simple callous indifference, they reflect behavior that is motivated and goal directed.
With that out of the way, I will give you a simple translation of the statement:
People who hurt others a lot have similar personalities. The same genes produce both the hurtful behavior and the “hurtful personality type.”
The above statement appears in an article entitled, “The role of antisocial tendencies in the psychopathy construct.” In this paper Dr. Hare lays out an argument that antisocial tendencies and the psychopathic personality type are inseparable. You can’t separate habitually hurtful behavior from the personalities of the people who have this habit. Furthermore, the same genes play a role in the development of habitually hurtful behavior and the development of the hurtful personality.
I’ll say it again another way. You cannot separate the evil someone does from the evil someone is. It also appears there is an evil gene or more likely, evil genes. If you are wondering if a person you know is a “sociopath/psychopath” use this statement to guide your thinking.
If a child you love has the genes of a sociopathic/ psychopathic person you should be motivated to understand all of this. As I considered the implications of genetics for myself and my family I asked a number of questions.
1. Many papers say the “psychopaths” as diagnosed by a checklist interview (The PCL-R) are different from “sociopaths” or those who have “antisocial personality disorder.” Well if that is true, do they have different genes?
2. What do we know about the evil genes themselves and what they are doing?
With these questions in mind, I read the scientific literature looking for evidence that psychopaths have their own special genetics. In the end, I discovered what Dr. Hare says, that there are genes that increase the likelihood of antisocial behavior including its extreme- criminal behavior. There are also genes that link to the personality traits of hurtful people and criminals. The genes appear to be the same genes.
Furthermore, there is a genetic connection between hurtful behavior, addiction and ADHD. That is why I decided to subtitle my book “A guide to overcoming your child’s genetic connection to antisocial behavior, addiction and ADHD” and NOT “A guide to overcoming your child’s genetic link to a psychopath.”
The bad news is that since all these disorders are genetically linked we have to worry about our kids’ risk for ADHD and addiction in addition to their risk for sociopathy/psychopathy. The link between alcoholism/addiction and psychopathy/sociopathy has been known since the 1940s, early writers like Dr. Cleckley (author of The Mask of Sanity) commented on it.
Now what do we know about the nature of evil genes? In my book, I explain that studies seem to show that these genes code for certain temperaments. The list of temperamental traits I came up with is on page 166 of my book and is given below:
| Inborn Attribute |
Definition |
| Aloof | Difficulty forming and enjoying attachments |
| Impulsive | Defective impulse control |
| Fearless | Lack of fear |
| Outgoing | Strong desire to explore social and physical environment |
| Dominant | Strong desire to be at the top of the pecking order |
| Anger-Prone | “Hair-trigger” for anger |
I am always on the lookout for other people’s lists of the genetically determined temperamental traits associated with antisocial behavior and sociopathy/psychopathy. In their book, the Psychology of Criminal Conduct, Drs. D.A. Andrews and James Bonita discuss the search for the “crime gene.” They summarize the findings as follows:
“The findings from family lineage, twin, and adoption studies also converge and conclude that there is a genetic component to criminal behavior. It is not criminal behavior per se that is inherited but temperamental characteristics such as impulsivity, sensation-seeking, and negative emotionality that are inherited.”
Notice the overlap between their list and mine. Outgoing and sensation-seeking are the same thing. Being anger-prone is part of negative emotionality.
If you have read my book, you know that it paints a picture of hope for the kids that carry these genes. Just look at the list for yourself. Probably the most worrisome temperamental trait on the list above is aloofness. However, an inborn tendency toward aloofness does not have to translate into antisocial behavior. If a detached child can be taught to engage in prosocial goals, then the detachment won’t be as much of an issue. For example, there are many interesting occupations that do not require a lot of social interaction. These are ideally suited to those with a tendency toward being aloof.
An awareness of the list of temperamental traits a child may have been born with is an important first step in guiding that child. If you know the list, you know what to look for and you can come up with strategies to make the best of your own child’s temperament. Rather than trying to make a child into someone he/she is not, it is better to try to work with who he/she is.
Notice that several of the traits are also associated with leadership potential. So the same list of genetic traits can lead to the development of a contributing prosocial person or an antisocial person depending on environmental factors. Genetics plays a role in antisocial tendencies and psychopathic personality traits but a person is not only the product of genes. Parenting, adult mentors, peers, educational opportunities and physical health may all make a difference.
A child with poor impulse control does not have to live with a high level of disability any more than a dyslexic child has to live with an inability to read. Both groups of children require special education to overcome their genetics.
The radio just quoted “a joke” from the late night talk show host Conan O’brien, “They have had a hard time finding jurors for the upcoming OJ Simpson armed robbery trial”¦ They are having a hard time finding a jury of his peers”¦ those who have gotten away with a double murder.”
OJ Simpson exemplifies all the writings about inborn temperaments, antisocial behavior and psychopathy. He has a history of antisocial behavior including domestic violence and more. He also has psychopathic personality traits. No one will deny that the man has a number of gifts that likely have a strong genetic basis. These gifts range from athletic talent to interpersonal charisma. It appears from my vantage point that all of these gifts have been used directly and indirectly for evil.
To summarize then, the temperamental traits that lead to the evil a person is and the evil a person does can also can lead to the good a person is and the good a person does. The direction that any given person’s life takes is influenced by many things including parenting, peers, trauma and perhaps most importantly, personal choice. Genetics puts a person at risk but does not necessarily determine his/her destiny.
For more on guiding and parenting children with genetic risk see Parentingtheatriskchild.com and my parenting blog.
Oxy: God knows when you will be conceived and when you will die. It’s in how we live that counts … not the years or the days or the hours.
That’s what people forget or don’t want to be reminded of… it isn’t the quantity of our lives (time spent down here), it’s the quality of our lives.
I remember what my father always told me … If one person, just one person misses you the day you die, then your life was worth living.
Peace.
I’d like to add my favorite saying. I don’t know who wrote this, but it is so true.
We have this life that soon will pass, only what we do with love will last.
Peace.
Amen.
Wini,
You are absolutely right on that, and the saddest thing is that there is NOT ONE PERSON, except possibly my mother, who will give a hoot if my son were to die to day, or who would weep over his passing. I realize, sadly, that if I were notified today that my P-son were dead, my feeling would be one of RELIEF, not grief, and I have no doubt that his brothers would feel the same. He has spent so much time in prison that he has NO “FRIENDS” except those that he made in prison, and most of those are just like him. I can’t see them weeping over him.
Oxy: I do believe that we are a clean slate when born. I think the “bad seed” type of babies know instinctively when born how to get their way with people. If the caretaker missed 1 time picking them up, the child knows and goes balistic making mommy figure running around the clock feeding, rocking etc. changing diapers, singing lullabys etc.
As a child grows … they absorbed their surroundings … not just what their parental figures are providing … but TV, friends down the street, what’s at school etc. etc. etc. Does the kid like the person in the white hat, on the white horse, or do they think the guy with the black hat, on the black horse is more interesting? It’s how a person perceives their life that starts them on the path of how they are going to turn out. No offense to any parents out there who think you had a big part of raising your child … you did as far as the bare essentials, love, etc., but you really are background noise until they mature into their late 20s and start to talk with you and dad again.
My parents always told all four of their children that we were all different and they loved us all – in our own individual way. And of course instilled that we were family … yadda, yadda, yadda and could you try to get along???? Even on their deaths beds … both of them … making us promise to stick together as a family. I’m smiling as I’m writing this … very clever of them to do this … the final guilt trip to abide by … but I understand that is out of love and that blood is thicker than water etc.
My oldest sister and my middle sister and I butt heads all the time. All 3 of us are from the same family, yet we perceive life differently. When the older two can’t get their way with me, out comes their manipulative tactics … to overcome and conquer. Who cares if these tactics are right or wrong … their egos are making the decision … not logic.
Anyway, I feel this is the same for what is known as the anti-social personality. They do know right from wrong but choose wrong … cause of movies like “Ocean’s Eleven, the newest version and the one with Sinatra and Martin etc.”. Growing up as kids … who wouldn’t want the glamorous lives of what they saw in the movies … today’s kids have Clooney and Pitt and the rest of them to idolize as sexy criminals robbing millions out of Sin City USA – Las Vegas. Hey, the industry creates this crap to entertain and make money … young kids know this on one level, but on the subconscious level … didn’t movies like Oceans 11 hit a cord with these kids … the little girls can be like Julia Roberts and the little boys want to be Pitt and the rest of the cast that played in the movie … plus movie sequels to the same old story line … bad over trumping the boring good. Bad, getting what you want, when you want, any time you want … and looking at the sexy babe I get on my arm after its over. And, hey, they don’t show the devastation in any detail to those that got robbed? They don’t show the years of turmoil and confusion of undoing what the Black hatted heroes did?
What movie did the good guy have out in the last 20 years – oh “Dave”. And maybe a few more.
Hollywood glamorizes the anti-social life .. I lean more towards the theory that it is learned behaviors … conditioned in the subconscious of children at first … then as the child grows and the ego takes off … they know they are accepting the bad boy/girl side to life. It’s acknowledged and accepted.
I’m laughing as I write this next sentence. My EX loved John Wayne movies. Me thinking he liked Wayne for being a good guy … in hindsight, he was watching these movies to perfect his con of looking and acting the part of the “nice guy”.
Peace.
Wini,
As far as “original sin” I feel that a child is born SINLESS, but as far as being a “clean slate” genetically, I will have to differ there. Some children are born to be tall, some short, some chunky and some slim, those are the genetic potentials that they come with already in the genes, and assuming that a child whose genetic potential is to be 6′ 8″ isn’t starved as a child, there is a good chance he will be that tall. A child born to be 5’6″ isn’t going to be 6’8″ no matter what you feed him!
Some children are born with brighter potential intellects than others, and some children are born mentally challenged so that they will never be able to care for themselves. Those things are GENETIC. Environment can help to over come some of these things, but not totally alleviate them.
I have a friend who is dyslexic and yet he became an engineer. He had a lot of difficulties in overcoming that and when he sends me an e mail I don’t so much as “read it” as “decipher” it. LOL In fact I kid him about it and we have a good laugh, but it is a fact of his genes.
My son C is ADHD, and he definitely sees the world from a perspective that is different than mine, even though I am also a bit hyperactive, and since the airplane crash I have been attention deficit for sure. CRS.
Children who are born with the genetic predisposition to be alcoholics have a gene that makes alcohol more addictive to them than to the child who is born without that gene or genes. Environment (whether there is alcohol available to that child and at what age) will determine whether that gene is EXPRESSED or not.
Environment has a relationship to Ps to some degree, but just as environment cannot totally over come the height or IQ of a child, any more than you can take a wolf pup away from his mother at the moment he is born and suckle him on a pointer bird dog and make him into a pointer. He is going to grow up to be a WOLF no matter who bottle feeds him or how. He has the genetics of a wolf and he is going to want to hunt prey.
My Border Collie as a lot of the same instincts of a hunting wolf, but through thousands of generations of selective breeding, those instincts have been refined so that those instincts can be used and the dog trained to herd sheep or goats, hogs or cattle and NOT kill them. But if I let my Border Collie run loose, he would be over in the neighbor’s pasture herding his cattle and someone would put a bullet in his head. He cannot be allowed to run freely like I did my Great Pyrenees dog, because her wolf instincts had been honed through 8 or 10,000 years to stay with and guard her “flock” and in her case, her flock didn’t roam so neither did she.
In fact, having a Pyr which guards, and runs off anything “chasing” livestock from the place, getting her used to allowing my Border Collies to “work” (chase) the goats and sheep took some doing. But, they are smart animals and she got used to having MY Collies herding animals, but no others.
Yes, environment and training can have and does have influence on all of us and what we are, how we act, and what we think is right and wrong, what behavior we will accept and what we will not, but GENETICS is what you are born with and what the environment gets to work on. Unfortunately, there are apparently some children born that have enough of the P-gene(s) that the best of parents couldn’t environmentally alter them enough to keep them out of prison or to get them to bond to other humans.
Not that I think that they are 100% destined, they have choices, just like the person with the alcoholic gene has a choice NOT TO DRINK, but I think their choices are difficult, more difficult than they would be for someone without those genes, but choices, none-the-less. Just like it is “easier” for the alcoholic to choose to drink than it is for him/her to choose NOT to drink, it is easier for the P to choose to act like a P than it is to choose to NOT act like a P. But once they have set of soundly down that road, there doesn’t seem to be any place to turn around and go back, and even if they could turn around and go back, they don’t WANT TO.
Oxy: Then there’s the sensations to put into the mix. Some people hear what you are saying, others feel what you are saying … I see what you are saying … what you are saying leaves a such and such taste in my mouth. Daaaaaaaaaa, but we all have free will. Do your homework on your own, figure out how to do it, gain the confidence and get to stay humble that you know how to do it (don’t have to brag) … as the other child pays or bullies someone to do his/her homework for them…. didn’t learn how to do the work, didn’t learn the lessons … still handed in the work to the teacher … no one called him/her on it … what did this kid learn? That they were still rewarded for getting the assignment done and their ego got inflated (bragging to themselves or others what they got away with).
Big difference of living the way God wants us to live versus living from your ego. Righteous way to live is doing it God’s way … and all that is learned from it. Unrighteous way of living (through your ego, shooting from your hips) you learn how to be a bigger and better bs artist, not gaining confidence and knowledge of how to do anything … just gaining a bigger and more inflated ego … looking down your noses at the masses … we’re all a bunch of flunkies for believing to take the righteous paths in life.
A blogger the other nite mentioned a girlfriend growing up in her home town … best friends and how this woman ripped the hearts out of all the boys, then men she dated. The entire town ignores her now … she’s aged and not liking it much not being 17 again, forever …playing her ego games on folks. Moral of the story, her superficiality is driving her over the edge … I’m sure she’s still conning others, but at a lesser level than having the whole world as her oyster when she had her youth.
Same in my town. An old time hooker parlayed her $$$ into politics and real estate. She had it made it financially and socially … anyone who was anyone or no one came to her restaurant … she was never left out in the cold or lonely for entertainment with people flocking into her place or having the insight scoop into what was happening in the state. She was in her 90s I think when she passed on. Her trade mark clothes … mini skirts, bleached blonde hair, go-go boots … summer or winter, that’s what she wore (variation of). She always thought herself the same age her entire life … always 17 or 18, (the madame) never aging gracefully and comfortable in her own skin. Always the ego in full force projecting out to the world. Don’t get me wrong, I believe she was a nice person … it was her ego wouldn’t/couldn’t let go of her youth, when she was at the top of her game. She used to chance young teenagers down the city streets whistling to them to come with her. Some guys were nice and played up to her, walking her across the streets … others turned and ran and called her names. It was sad to see that happening and it was nice to see the guys who were good to her, kissed her hand while they left her at one corner or another. Gentlemen, just being gentlemen, just because.
So I do think it’s how your mind perceives your world that creates you and with the medias blasting into every room of our house to play games on egos to buy this or buy that … cause if you don’t, you’re a looser … has a lot to do with it.
Peace.
Oxy: Both sets of grandfather’s drank. Both my parents did not abuse alcohol or drink other than socially. Both parents didn’t know from one day to the next if their dads (my grandfathers) were going to be good daddy or monster daddy due to the intake of alcohol in their systems.
My father made a conscious decision at the age of ten years old … that if he ever was lucky enough to marry and have children he would treat his wife like gold and his children that way too. Actually, my father treated everyone like gold … no matter who they were. He unconditionally loved everyone, and vice versa, people loved my dad.
My godfather (my dad’s older brother) also refused to drink because of the craziness of having an alcoholic father and my aunt (their sister) can’t stand the smell of beer … reminds her of the smell coming from the basement as my grandfather and his siblings mixed their crazy brew.
What I’m getting at is being consciously aware of how you want to live. That’s half the battle. What we think is what we are.
As I stated before my Dad used to tell all of us when we were kids … you can live a happy life or you can live a miserable life … it’s up to you how you want to live it. How you perceive life … is the glass half full or half empty. There is nothing floating around the world written in stone that says you must be this way or you must be that way.
Peace.
Hands down, absolutely there are genetic reasons — one of the ADHD genes is for “response ready” behavior and very advantageous if you live in a nomadic tribe in Kenya — or, probably if you were a Viking or other explorer during the early eras of human-civilization. (This is the dopamine receptor 4, 7 repeat allele).
Kind of a problem if you’re in the suburbs. (There used to be a credit card commercial with Vikings getting jobs in the mall that is a good illustration, I think — the Capitol One cards? )
I need to read Dr. L’s and Ms. B’s books, and the research is coming out fast and furious in this area – regards, Swivelchair
Actually Swivel new research on ADHD has shown something very interesting, something that explains a few things. A recent study found this:
Turning to a sensitive technology called amperometry that uses a small carbon fiber to “listen in” on how single cells release or transport dopamine, the Galli and Blakely laboratories discovered that the altered transporters were running backward at an exaggerated rate, literally pushing dopamine out of the cell.
“We think this activity would short circuit the normal synaptic transmission process,” Blakely said. “Instead of the precise ‘pop-pop-pop’ of dopamine being released from vesicles (tiny packets of neurotransmitter), there’s a cloud of dopamine bleeding out, and the dopamine signaling system is not as sharp as it should be.”
To their surprise, the investigators also found that amphetamine blocks the leak of dopamine through variant transporter. Normally, amphetamine does just what the mutation does – it causes the dopamine transporter to run in the reverse direction.
“This observation unifies the action of these drugs and strongly suggests that backward-running transporters may be an important mechanism in ADHD, even for those who do not have this particular mutation,” Blakely said.
Researchers studying the dopamine transporter have found that there are multiple ways to cause the transporter to run backward, Galli pointed out, and the team is now screening other genes in the “network of signaling pathways that target the transporter and reverse dopamine flow” as potential contributors to ADHD risk.