Examining Genetic and Environmental Effects on Reactive Versus Proactive Aggression”

Aggression is a natural part of human behavior, and can even be adaptive in certain situations. However, when aggression manifests itself in violent behaviors, it becomes problematic. Patterns of aggression change throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, and these changes usually differ between males and females (Loeber, 1997). Physical aggression is typically greatest early in life and decreases during adolescence, whereas more serious violence tends to increase with age, particularly during adolescence (Loeber, 1997). Despite the changes that occur in aggressive tendencies throughout childhood and adolescence, aggression is seen as a very stable trait, almost as stable as

The aggression can cause children to have an different type of mood swing than others that does not have aggression.It mostly has a after impact of growing up with mental health of 20230 of children from the middle ages from 2 to 17 in USA(Tuner2).All the aggression in the children causes them to have heart attack and blood pressure at a young age. The mental can come from a different aspect, such as abusing there own bodies with drugs(7). When children become an angry aggressive person they need help to control their actions around their peers. Even though it is important to know of behaviors that that send signal that presences of a child

There are many different ways that behavior can be explained, especially on the terms of nature vs. nurture. Aggression is a behavior that has been extensively analyzed in a complex manner and the causes of it can be explained many different ways. Aggression can be defined as hostile or destructive behavior that can cause injury or destructive outlook especially when caused by frustration. Nature can be defined as aspects of behavior that have been inherited or are genetic, while nurture is all aspects that are influenced by environmental characteristics and experience. Many factors, both biological and environmental, influence and promote aggressive behaviors, such as hormones and neurotransmitters, genetics, family life, past experiences, and hobbies.

Aggression is verbal or physical behavior intended to cause harm. Although we may not like to admit it, we all participate in aggressive behavior at some level and at some time in our lives. Do evolutionary factors play a large role in aggression? What was Freud 's theory about violence? What does more recent research say about a likely evolutionary role for violence? What does Hawley 's research say about this?

385). Furthermore, my subject was displaying physical aggression because he was harming other children by means of physical injury like, pushing and hitting, in order to get what he wanted (Berk, 2012). Although my subject was not meaning to intentionally hurt other children, his aggressive acts made him not well liked by the other children; thus, he failed at that time to form friendships.

However, the purpose of this study is that children are at risk for poor relationships with teachers and peers because of the difficulty of behavior (Madill, Scott, Rodkin, 2014) and sometimes could cause disruption for teachers and peers which can affect their social cognitive and behavioral schills. Another purpose is to know that early childhood years is very significant for children to learn positive way to interact with other, and to be an acceptable human being in any social setting. In addition, this study investigates the relation between the aggressiveness in the factor that are associated with peer interaction and social behavior in a sample of preschool-age children. What about the gender differences in the expressive of aggression? Are boys use physical aggressive more often than girls are? Are girls and boys interact differently with their peers?

There is additional research that has found callous-unemotional traits to be more common in those exhibiting comorbid typologies of both reactive and proactive aggression (Fanti, Frick, & Georgiou, 2009). They indicate such traits as being predictive of more complex antisocial behaviours, though when looking at the callous subscale, proactive aggression was exclusively strongly related to this trait (Fanti, Frick, & Georgiou, 2009). Literature has noted a large number of individuals who are involved in both typologies of reactive and proactive aggression and are therefore highly aggressive in nature (Frick & Marsee, 2006; Poulin & Boivin, 2000). It is important to note distinct behaviours within each typology and

Psychologists have been studying problematic behaviors for years. In some cases problematic behaviors can come from the same household and act totally different from one another. That’s what sparked researchers to try and figure out whether the behavior was learned, genetics, or is it from the person’s(infants, toddlers, adolescents, teens , and adults) environment. In order to figure out whether kids behaviors are genetic or if they are learned from their environments. Studies have shown that disruptive behavior can be genetic, but other factors play a role in disruptive behaviors which has drawn these questions:

Children’s behavior can be genetic in some cases, but controlling a child’s behavior starts at home. According to the twin cohort study, in 1995, mothers were asked to rate their twins physical aggression, by reporting behaviors such as hitting, biting, kicking, and fighting at the ages of 20, 32 and 50 months old. The environment analyses provided some support for the genetic set point hypotheses. The genetics factors always explained a substantial part of individual’s differences in the physical aggression. When children have emotional problems it can also play a role in children’s behavior. Preschoolers can suffer from depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic

The Homicide Adaptation Theory proposes that “humans possess a number of specific, evolved adaptations for killing that have been selected for because they managed to successfully solve recurrent adaptive problems in our ancestral past.” Unfortunately, the author deemed there was a lack of evidence to confirm the theory, and instead supported the theory “that homicide is a by-product of other evolved adaptations.” Another study, Natural born killers: The genetic origins of extreme violence by Christopher J. Ferguson and Kevin Beaver, contemplates why some humans are genetically at risk to extreme violence. The authors, like this paper, first needed to define the “the evolutionary and biological mechanisms of normal, adaptive aggression from which extreme violence stems.” They then provided evidence that while aggression is often connoted as a negative attribute, in moderation it is quite adaptive for humans. Many modern situations, such as social dominance, sports participation, defense of young, and active pursuit of school and career success, benefit from aggression, which is therefore highly

Violence is one of humanity’s oldest problems, but the neural pathways that underlie violence are not well understood. Aggression stems from evolutionary roots, ranging from simplistic behaviors such as defending offspring to potentially more complicated human mental disorders. The study of aggression should improve not only our understanding of the properly-functioning mind, but also characterize poorly-understood mental disorders.1

Physical assault and aggression is the second leading cause of death among 14 to 17 year olds, next to vehicular accidents (Loeber). But why are humans so aggressive in the first place? There are two sides of the debate: Nature, and Nurture. Some say that it’s human nature, genetics that cause most behaviors, while others say that we act as we learned during childhood. This argument applies to aggression as well. Aggression is mainly caused by things during childhood and adolescence where people learn from various sources about aggression, although, human psychology plays a slight factor.

There are clearly no simple genetic or hormonal factors that can explain the variation in aggressive in males and females. Studies of human males suggest that there is at most a small genetic component to aggression, but a greater one for personality traits associated with such behavior. The biological mechanisms translating the message in the genes into antisocial or criminal behavior are not known. Therefore, there is clearly no simple aggressive gene effect. Many genes are likely to be involved, and each may have a weak effect on aggressive behavior. A direct genetic effect on aggression, for example, may determine how quickly an individual responds to aggravation. Aggression may also be influenced indirectly; for example, a man's size and strength may affect the way he behaves and how others react to him. (Turner, 253)

Aggression is part of our nature. It is hard to deny that each one of us, at certain point in our lives, have felt an irrational anger that resulted in an aggressive behavior. This behavior, as it the case with any other action, tends to carry consequences. Aggressive behavior can be seen to have its roots in the hunter and gathering process when a distinction had to happen amongst the members of a community. Women had to stay home, take care of the offspring and became gatherers. On the other hand men had to go out, hunt and provide for their families. Thus, levels of aggression were early determined amongst genders. Aggression is not only a matter of gender it is also a matter of motivation, in this case it mostly translates

Is how aggressive an individual is determined only by his or her genes? Whether psychological and behavioral traits are purely determined by genetics, solely influenced by socialization, or a combination of both has been a highly debated topic within the field of psychology known as the “nature-nurture issue.” Today, although still disputed, a good number of psychologists and other scientists concur that genetics and the environment mutually influence and intermingle with one another (Myers, 2015). We can partially credit this fizzling-out of the nature-nurture debate to the discoveries made in twin studies. Twin studies are used to help delineate the genetic components of behavior and the socially and culturally influenced components (Myers, 2015). This type of study enables researchers to examine the extent to which genetics and environment have an effect on the development of traits and behavior. For example, in lecture, we learned that a common and natural experiment used in twin studies is to examine a set of twins who grew up in the same household and a set twins who grew up in separate households (K.W. Brown, personal communication, August 29, 2017).