Nature or Nurture for Determining Psychopathy

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What is a psychopath? What type of person can be characterized by this and how do they come to be? But first before we can answer these questions we must first know what a psychopath is. Psychopaths are people suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviors; clinically it is a person who has a lack of what we would consider a conscience. Psychopaths are seen to suffer from a lack of empathy because of psychological, genetic and environmental factors. Scientists have many theories concerning psychopaths. Scientist do not have a definite clear cut answer on what is the cause for psychopathy but they have many ideas; nature and the nurture of the person. Nature is the genes that the person carries. The nurture of the person when they were a child is simply means how they were treated when they were growing up and/or how they were raised. Some scientists even consider it a possibility that it could be a mixture of the two. Scientists consider nature as a reason for psychopathy because the way their brains are set up. One theory suggests that the one region located in the brain that is less active in psychopaths is the amygdala which is normally linked with fear. In “The Wisdom of Psychopaths” Dutton explains that studies have been done and have proven that the brain has a dysfunction. Dutton also explains a case study that he has done with the thought of killing one person over killing five. Psychopaths have no problem killing that one person. There is no dilemma in their brain; the thought of someone dying does not affect them emotionally. Other brain studies measuring different aspects of the integration of emotions with other human experiences have shown the same abnormalities when it come... ... middle of paper ... ...hile some say it is nature and others say it is nurture, I believe it to be a little of both. Even though there are the few cases such as Rhoda who had the so called perfect but yet in the end turned into a cold hearted killer. Yet again you have children such as Beth who was raised in such a horrible environment and lost the sense of remorse and feeling and turned into psychopath. With all this said it comes down to nature and nurture to form a dangerous psychopath. Although there are some occasions where nature was the only factor and sometimes nurture is the only factor, when it comes to the end you have to take both aspects into consideration. Even with all the research we have we still do not know the definite reason why someone turns into this ruthless monster. Even though we think it has to do with nature and nurture, the world may never know the real reason.

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