scholarly journals Forensic Value of Genetic Variants Associated with Anti-Social Behavior

Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 2386
Author(s):  
Antonio Oliva ◽  
Simone Grassi ◽  
Massimo Zedda ◽  
Marco Molinari ◽  
Stefano Ferracuti

Insanity defense is sometimes invoked in criminal cases, and its demonstration is usually based on a multifactorial contribution of behavioural, clinical, and neurological elements. Neuroradiological evidence of structural alterations in cerebral areas that involve decision-making and moral reasoning is often accepted as a useful tool in these evaluations. On the other hand, the genetic predisposition to anti-social behavior is still controversial. In this paper, we describe two cases of violent crimes committed by young carriers of genetic variants associated with personality disorder; both the defendants claimed to be insane at the time of the crime. We discuss these cases and review the scientific literature regarding the relationship between legal incapacity/predisposition to criminal behavior and genetic mutations. In conclusion, despite some genetic variants being able to influence several cognitive processes (like moral judgement and impulse control), there is currently no evidence that carriers of these mutations are, per se, incapable of intentionally committing crimes.

1986 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Heath ◽  
Candace Kruttschnitt ◽  
David Ward

This study builds on the research concerning television viewing and aggression by extending the external validity, or generalizability, of the dependent variable. We assess the relationship between self-reported television viewing at 8, 10, and 12 years of age and the subsequent commission of a violent criminal act. This study is based on interview data from 48 males incarcerated for violent crimes and 45 nonincarcerated, nonviolent males matched on age, race, and neighborhood of residence during adolescence. Results show that the extent of a respondent’s reported television viewing was not, in and of itself, predictive of violent criminal acts. Instead, it was the interaction of heavy doses of television viewing and exposure to either maternal or paternal abuse that related to violent crime. These findings support the efforts of some recent scholars in their attempts to understand why television has a negative effect on only some viewers. The results are discussed in light of the cognitive formulations of neoassociationism, encoding specificity, and the double-dose effect.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Priscilla Haring ◽  
Harald Warmelink ◽  
Marilla Valente ◽  
Christian Roth

Most of the scientific literature on computer games aimed at offering or aiding in psychotherapy provides little information on the relationship between the game’s design and the player’s cognitive processes. This article investigates the use of Bloom’s taxonomy in describing a psychotherapeutic game in terms of knowledge level and cognitive processing. It introduces the Revised Bloom Taxonomy and applies this to five psychotherapeutic games (Personal Investigator, Treasure Hunt, Ricky and the Spider, Moodbot, and SuperBetter) in a two-round procedure. In the first round consensus was reached on the Player Actions with Learning Objectives (PALOs) in each game. The second round sought to determine what level of knowledge and cognitive processing can be attributed to the PALOs by placing them in the taxonomy. Our low intercoder reliability in the second round indicates that Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy is not suitable to compare and contrast content between games.


2000 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula K. Hendree ◽  
Sandra D. Nicks

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between criminal behavior and perceived sex of the perpetrator. Participants (26 men and 44 women) reviewed scenarios depicting an armed robbery and a child's murder. 98% of the respondents attributed the armed robbery to a man, whereas an equal number attributed the child's murder to both a man and a woman. The respondents also ascribed the man's behavior to internal characteristics, whereas the woman's criminal behavior was attributed to external situations or to mental illness. These findings are in accord with current sex stereotypes.


1997 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 307-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol S. Campbell ◽  
James W. Robinson

Exploring the relationship between women's criminal behavior as evidenced in violence, type of crime, prior criminal history, and the fulfillment of traditional female roles delineated by marital status, employment status, or presence of children in the home of the woman was based on the evaluation of 141 female inmates, which indicated a limited relationship between fulfilling traditional female roles and the nature of female criminal activity. Married and previously married subjects tended to be involved primarily with murder and secondarily with theft Single subjects were involved primarily with theft and secondarily involved with robbery. Employed subjects were more likely to be involved with theft and nonviolent crime. Unemployed subjects were more likely to be involved in violent crimes.


Author(s):  
Julia Quilter ◽  
Luke McNamara

Although alcohol and drug use features prominently in many areas of criminal offending, there has been limited investigation of how the effects of alcohol and other drugs are treated by criminal laws and the criminal justice system. This article examines the framing of judicial inquiries about “intoxication” in criminal cases in Australia. It illustrates the diverse types of evidence that may (or may not) be available to judges and juries when faced with the task of determining whether a person was relevantly “intoxicated.” It shows that in the absence of legislative guidance on how the task should be approached, courts tend to assign only a relatively marginal role to medical and scientific expert evidence, and frame the question as one that can be answered by applying common knowledge about the effects of alcohol and other drugs. The article examines the adequacy of this approach, given the weak foundation for assuming that the relationship between intoxication and the complex cognitive processes on which tribunals of fact are often required to reach conclusions (such as intent formation) is within the lay knowledge held by jurors and judges.


2020 ◽  
pp. 17-27
Author(s):  
D. Meshkov

The article presents some of the author’s research results that has got while elaboration of the theme “Everyday life in the mirror of conflicts: Germans and their neighbors on the Southern and South-West periphery of the Russian Empire 1861–1914”. The relationship between Germans and Jews is studied in the context of the growing confrontation in Southern cities that resulted in a wave of pogroms. Sources are information provided by the police and court archival funds. The German colonists Ludwig Koenig and Alexandra Kirchner (the resident of Odessa) were involved into Odessa pogrom (1871), in particular. While Koenig with other rioters was arrested by the police, Kirchner led a crowd of rioters to the shop of her Jewish neighbor, whom she had a conflict with. The second part of the article is devoted to the analyses of unty-Jewish violence causes and history in Ak-Kerman at the second half of the 19th and early years of 20th centuries. Akkerman was one of the southern Bessarabia cities, where multiethnic population, including the Jews, grew rapidly. It was one of the reasons of the pogroms in 1865 and 1905. The author uses criminal cases` papers to analyze the reasons of the Germans participation in the civilian squads that had been organized to protect the population and their property in Ackerman and Shabo in 1905.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Baek ◽  
Diana Tamir ◽  
Emily B. Falk

Information sharing is a ubiquitous social behavior. What causes people to share? Mentalizing, or considering the mental states of other people, has been theorized to play a central role in information sharing, with higher activity in the brain’s mentalizing system associated with increased likelihood to share information. In line with this theory, we present novel evidence that mentalizing causally increases information sharing. In three pre-registered studies (n = 400, 840, and 3500 participants), participants who were instructed to consider the mental states of potential information receivers indicated higher likelihood to share health news compared to a control condition where they were asked to reflect on the content of the article. Certain kinds of mentalizing were particularly effective; in particular, considering receivers’ emotional and positive mental states, led to the greatest increase in likelihood to share. The relationship between mentalizing and sharing was mediated by feelings of closeness with potential receivers. Mentalizing increased feelings of connectedness to potential receivers, and in turn, increased likelihood of information sharing. Considering receivers’ emotional, positive, and inward-focused mental states was most effective at driving participants to feel closer with potential receivers and increase sharing. Data provide evidence for a causal relationship between mentalizing and information sharing and provide insight about the mechanism linking mentalizing and sharing. Taken together, these results advance theories of information sharing and shed light on previously observed brain-behavior relationships.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda Lynn Groft ◽  
Nathan Pistory ◽  
Rachel Hardy ◽  
Peter Joseph McLaughlin

With the proliferation of neuroscience-related messages in popular media, it is more important than ever to understand their impact on the lay public. Previous research has found that people believed news stories more when irrelevant neuroscientific explanations were added. We sought to reveal whether such information could cause a change in social behavior. Specifically, based on publicized findings of the relationship between social behavior and the neurotransmitter oxytocin, we proposed that participants would accept more strangers into their in-group, or alternatively decrease in-group size, if told that there were oxytocin-based (relative to psychological construct-based) health benefits for doing so. In two tasks, participants were shown faces and written information about stimuli that could match their race, politics, and religion to varying degrees. In spite of evidence that participants processed the primes, and were sensitive to their level of similarity with stimuli, oxytocin-based priming did not alter categorization, or pupil dilation. It did not alter cross-race viewing behavior, as measured by an eye tracker, in consistent ways. Unexpectedly, pupil dilation increased when viewing stimuli of the same religion, an effect entirely related to White liberal Christians viewing other Christians. Overall, these results suggest that neuroscience information may impact some judgments, but lay people will not alter their likelihood of acceptance of strangers simply because they were primed with a neuroscience- (or more specifically, neurotransmitter-) based reason for doing so.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Mhd Alfahjri Sukri

This research was conducted to see how Mohammad Natsir thought about the relationship between Islam and Pancasila. This study also explains the causes of Natsir's change of mind which initially supported Pancasila as part of Islam and later turned into an opponent of Pancasila in Konstituante on 11 November to 6 December 1957. The methodology used was a qualitative method by describing the results of the analysis carried out. The research data is obtained through a review of documents and scientific literature. The results of the study show that Mohammad Natsir's change of mind regarding the relationship between Islam and Pancasila was influenced by Mohammad Natsir's political socialization which began from Natsir's view of Islam influenced by the childhood environment (conditional and socio-cultural) in Minangkabau; direct influence from national figures such as Ahmad Hassan, H. Agus Salim, Sheikh Ahmad Syurkati and H. O Tjokroaminoto; the indirect influence of international figures throughout reading book such as Hassan Al-Banna, Amir Syakib Arselan, Rashid Ridha and Muhammad Abduh; the influence of Natsir's organization and political parties, namely Jong Islamieten Bond (JIB), Islamic Unity (Persis), and Masyumi political parties; and the influence of the political conditions at that time which made Natsir's views change, which initially accepted Pancasila and then became an opponent of the Pancasila. This research shown there are two patterns of Natsir's relationship with Pancasila, namely (1) Natsir accepted Pancasila and, (2) Natsir opposed Pancasila.


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