Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Antisocial behavior more heritable for girls and the wealthy

According to this Swedish twin study, heritability for teenage antisocial behavior is higher for females and people from high-income homes. This pattern indicates that environments are more uniformly prosocial for girls and wealthy kids, so the impact of genes becomes more powerful. By contrast, men and poor people inhabit more diverse environments which can either encourage or discourage bad behavior, so genes end up comparatively less important.

These findings are consistent with a claim made by Emile Durkheim a century ago that social conditions make or break men more than women.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:56 PM

    men and poor people inhabit more diverse environments which can either encourage or discourage bad behavior, so genes end up comparatively less important.



    Or to put it a little more starkly, boys even in wealthy homes are more likely than their sisters to be emotionally traumatized as children.

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  2. Girls from high-income homes are more likely to get into trouble as teens, than are boys from high-income homes.

    I suppose one would have to anchor this in the wider culture before making any bold pronouncements. If I may:

    1.) There are a lot of non-Europeans in Swedish high schools today,
    2.) The non-whites are socially-dynamic; 'cool'. (Promoted so by multikulti culture, as in the USA).
    3.) Non-European immigrants in Swedish cities are a lot more criminal than native-Swedes.
    4.) If we say that girls "follow trends" more than boys, whatever those trends may be, that would explain the result of this study. They [upper-income white girls in Sweden] are emulating their nonwhite [lower-class] peers, whereas the boys do so much less, being less natural-followers.
    5.) Naturally, the white-Swede girls pushed over the edge to do this will be those with more genetic propensity to criminality.

    In the simplest terms: "It's the multikluti culture, stupid."

    How does that thesis hold up?

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