emotional

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Effects of Genetic Factors and Parental Control on Children’s Aggressiveness
Abstract
Aggressiveness is a common occurrence among children and the subject remains debatable. The children are reported to record signs of behavioral disorder from as early as 20 weeks of age. Many types of research have been launched on the causes of behavioral disorders among the children and its later development in life. Many hold the belief that the parental care, environmental factors are the principal determinants of one’s behavior. As a result, the burden has been laid on the parents who are to blame if the child displays negative characters like violence or aggressiveness. However, there is a larger question of the genetic heritability. At times the child has adopted the parent’s behaviors. In this review, the paper seeks to assess the effects of the genetic factors and parental control on children’s aggressiveness. The paper also compares the two and assesses which has more impact on the other. This derives
Aggressiveness in childhood and later in the entire life can be partially explained by genetic factors and partially by the surrounding conditions within which the child has been raised. Many are times when children sharing the same paternal or maternal genetic factors have shown different emotions and especially being overly aggressive. People said to be aggressive are characterized by vigorous behaviors such as the use of force, engagement in unprovoked attacks and likened invasions.

This is a question that is exceedingly important in the study of emotions and behaviors as concerns the extent to which is the result of genetic inheritance or parental control. Many studies have been conducted to assess the cause of aggression or violence. Many people believe that strict authority and exploitation of personal responsibility account for one’s aggressive behavior. However, one study at the Stanford prison demonstrated that aggression could be occasioned. Where certain studies provide clear evidence for the role of social situations and the environment in impacting violent behaviors, there is a significant stake on individual differences in the extent of aggressiveness under extreme conditions. Some of the studies regarding the condition within the family set up indicate a close resemblance among children reared in the same circumstances yet a cutline difference in other cases. This paper seeks to assess how genetic factors and parental control influence children’s behavior and later character in life.
While some behavioral genetic studies have deeply examined the issue of the gene by the environment, we cannot argue against the existence of their interactions. However, the genetic inclination for aggression should have more profound effects in other situations. The behavioral genetic relatedness between family members could be used to estimate the relative contribution of parental control and heritable differences in children’s aggressive behaviors. In a classical twin analysis, identical (monozygotic) twins are assumed to share 100% of their genes where the dizygotic twins are said to share only half of the segregating genes on a particular trait f interest like aggressiveness. By using the dizygotic and monozygotic analysis, the relative proportion of the three sources of variance can be efficiently estimated. These are the genetic influences, and common environmental influences coupled with parental control factors. On the one hand, dominance will highly influence a person’s character. However, this dominance is a mere interaction of the genes at a locus. When we sum up all the dominant and additive genes in oneself, we get what is referred as a broad-sense-heritability.
If a researcher compares identical twins for similarities for a particular trait, any excess likeness should be as a result of genes and not the how they have been brought up. The development of aggression among the toddlers is linked to genetic heredity and some degree the environment (“Toddlers’ Aggression Is Strongly Associated With Genetic Factors”). Referring to the study conducted by the University of Montreal, the report indicates that antisocial behaviors among the children start at infancy and heightens between the ages of two to four years. And while aggression peaks at this period, there is a despicable difference in frequency and rate of change of the behavior. This is associated with the interplay between the environmental and genetic features. It is reported that the genetic elements account for about 50% of the entire variance in the population. Others are prompted by surrounding factors including parental guidance.
A study of aggressive behavior among the twins was conducted by Dr. Tremblay involving both monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Initially, mothers were requested to rate their children’s aggression by recording individual behaviors that indicated signs of violence such as fighting, biting, hitting or use of angered language at the ages of one year eight months to four years and eight months. According to the research, genetic factors explained individual differences where environmental factors predicted developmental trajectories of aggressive behavior in the preschool period. Aggressive behaviors were reported to peak at only 30 months after birth. The result further indicated that children between the ages of 14 and 24 months tended to be physically violent towards their older or twin siblings (Baillargeon et al. 13-26). This is proof that the violent acts adopted by children hit the critical point at infancy. However, they become apparent at school age where the child reports multiple cases of aggressiveness. Further, it proves that people’s antisocial behavior traits are a factor of genetic inheritance and not so much in the surrounding factors.
Although the genetic factors play a significant role in the character building, children can be tuned to either learn or unlearn the patterns. It is reported that a child’s psychological growth takes place during their tender ages. This may differ with the sex where boys are said to score a higher frequency of physical aggression as opposed to girls who drop these behaviors at an early age (Plomin 583). The one way to substantially appreciate the gender difference is to consider the population an attributable fraction. However, when other risks are suppressed, children whose parents have evident violent behavioral issues at teenage such as fighting and getting into trouble with the law enforcement officers, pose the risk of adopting the same traits thrice. Younger mothers are more likely not to lead their children to contain their aggressiveness. Instead, children with these traits are bound to attract harsh parenting. However, the children learn these characteristics from their mothers when young. Those infants whose mothers lose control over their fussiness will show it to their colleagues at school at a very tender age. The combination of excessive aggressions and poor methods of parenting predicts the violent behaviors by the time the child is enrolling in school. Some researcher indicates that acute antisocial behavior like aggression is as a result of arrested socialization.
However much the environmental factors promote the development of aggressive behaviors, large stake lay in the genetic inheritance. By using the twin design method, twins separated at birth but brought up in uncorrelated environments still indicate similar traits. According to Lewis, two monozygotic twins, Jim Springer and Jim Lewis raised apart from the age of four weeks indicated close characters when they met at the age of 39. Apart from each suffering from the same tension headaches, they had similarly adopted habits such as smoking, nail biting and shared a similar vocational scene (Lewis, 3). A further study in the Minnesota found that about 70 percent of the intelligent quotient differences across the twin population are due to genetic differences where only 30% results from environmental variations. It is worth understanding that identical twins share all sources of genetic variance. As a result, the interaction among the genes does not matter. Springer and Lewis could have indicated entirely different characteristics were the environmental conditions they had been raised up in the primary determinant of the aggressive behaviors. Their close conformance showed that gene heredity plays a significant role in character development. The only variance could be whether there was a broad heritability or narrow heritability.
The genetic change during development is a vital subdiscipline of the behavioral genetics. There are different ways in which the genes affect personality. However, genes themselves cannot influence any action. It is the genotype that provides the design and hence affecting the behavioral phenotype. This happens indirectly where the biological structure and physiology are influenced as they develop within the environment. The genetic characteristics can only be passed through the chromosomes. As a result, this cannot change with the environmental factors or parental control. This determines one’s behavior from infant and hence the existence of aggressive behavior among children between the ages of 2 to 4 years.
Two principal components influence Children’s psychological aggressive behavior. The first is the shared environment. This includes all the factors that make the children in a family have the same traits. It can be assessed under the correlation of genetically unrelated kids brought up together, related but adopted separately or twins. It must be admitted that parental styles affect the children behavior due to the genetic relationship. Hence the issue of psychological aggressiveness among the children is a factor of the genetic inheritance as well as parental influences and environmental factors. The genes and the environmental factors interact to define personality. However, the behavior genes are rather pessimistic in that it is usually hard to change one’s genetic character as opposed to behavioral characteristics.
Works Cited
Baillargeon, Raymond H. et al. “Gender Differences In Physical Aggression: A Prospective Population-Based Survey Of Children Before And After 2 Years Of Age.”. Developmental Psychology 43.1 (2007): 13-26. Web.
Lewis, Tanya. “Twins Separated At Birth Reveal Staggering Influence Of Genetics”. LiveScience. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
Plomin, R. “Commentary: Why Are Children In The Same Family So Different? Non-Shared Environment Three Decades Later”. International Journal of Epidemiology 40.3 (2011): 582-592. Web.
Toddlers’ aggression is strongly associated with genetic factors. (2016). “Toddlers’ “Toddlers’ Aggression Is Strongly Associated With Genetic Factors”. Nouvelles.umontreal.ca. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.