biological explanations of aggression

1)physical environment 2)psychosocial influences 3)biological influences

Genetic influences are considered distal factors, meaning they create a predisposition to aggression, which may be expressed when triggered by environmental (proximal) factors.

emotionally distressing event that a child is exposed to in their childhood eg neglect abuse that puts them at greater risk of developing mental illnesses later in life

The interaction between social environments (relationships, work, culture) and psychological factors (mental health, emotions, beliefs). eg lonliness, ,major life changes and they cause changes to the development of the CNS

something in the environment that effects the nervous system and therefore causes changes in cognition. emotion and behaviour eg a neurotoxin like lead (inc aggression)

1)genes 2)physical env;is it aggression facilitating or inhibiting? 3)psychosocial influences;where they exposed to aggression and violence at a young age? (more prone to it later)

adoption (env) and twin studies (genetic)

a method of estimating the size of a genetic influence by seeing weather identical twins are more similar than non identical twins on a specific trait (looks for concordance)

identical twins ,share 100% same genes AND environment

non identical twins,share 50% same genes but same environments

if the identical twins are more similar than the non identical twins on a trait then there is a genetic influence and if they’re equally similar,there is no genetic influence

-using a correlation coeffecient,the closer it is to one the higher the influence is genetic but if its far from one then there is likely to also be an env influence. MZ>DZ then its genetic

square the MZ correlation and turn it into a percentage

a method for estimating the size of environmental influence by seeing weather the adopted individual is more similar to their adopted or biological parent.

-if they’re more similar to their biological parent then influence is genetic -if they’re more similar to their adopted parents then influence is environmental

-they don’t tell you the size of the influence, only which factor it is caused by. –rare to get data from both biological parents -relies on adoptees being adopted straight from birth

-twins are relatively rare so difficult to get a large sample size -not safe to assume that MZ+DZ have identical env as likely that MZ are treated more similarly as usually same gender

1)a large sample 2)uses same sex DZ twins

1-empirical evidence from twin and adoption studies 2-objective measurement 3-biological plausability as genes affect NTs and brain systems eg the PFC, amygdala which are already linked to aggression

1-interaction of genes with the environment eg ACES 2-reductionist 3-possible determinism if we conclude that aggression is genetic