15/02/2019

GENES, ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOUR:

What should we do with serial killers?
Professor Andrew Page

facebook.com/UWAPsychology

• “British serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who took

fifteen men home to his flat, and while they
passed out from alcohol or slept, strangled
them. He had no feelings of hatred or
aggression toward them, and some he
even thought he was helping. While
describing to the police how he had killed
them and kept their corpses in his closets
or under the floorboards until they finally
had to be dissected and discarded, he
showed no remorse. His confession, which
lasted thirty hours, was without emotion.”

trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/psychopath/2.html

• Walter Sinnott-Armstrong: So
the different brain technologies
suggest that it's not just that, up
know, they're a little worse than us
but that they've actually got a
hypo-functioning amygdala, with
not enough of a particular
neurotransmitter in that area. They
were born that way, it's a
biological condition.
• Alan Saunders: So ultimately,
mimicking, understanding social
rules, that's not enough to find
somebody legally responsible for
their actions?
• Walter Sinnott-Armstrong: No, I think not, because when we punish
someone we are expressing a certain type of moral condemnation. If we were
just giving them a speeding ticket or a parking ticket and they know what the
speeding limit is but they don't care - and they have no way of caring because
of the way their brain is structured -- then I'm going to say 'I don't care, give
them this parking ticket or this speeding ticket, 'cause it's just a fine trying to
regulate human conduct.' But when we find someone guilty of rape or murder,
we are not treating it like a parking fine or a speeding ticket. We are
expressing a moral condemnation and it seems to me in this case we are
expressing moral condemnation of a behaviour that's a symptom of a mental
illness that this person has. Compare schizophrenia: if someone has a
delusion and they think they are Jesus Christ and so they go out and kill the
person that they think is Satan, well that's a horrible thing they did and causes
a lot of pain. But it's a mental illness and they did it only because of their
mental illness. I think that's the model we ought to start thinking about
psychopaths.

abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/the-moral-judgment-of-psychopaths/2926530#transcript

1
 15/02/2019

What is the implicit model?

Where does this leave the

psychopath?
• Prison? • Hospital?

Language Acquisition
• B. F. Skinner
– Acquire language through
learning in response to
selective reinforcement of
trial and error (cf.
Thorndike’s cats)

2
 15/02/2019

Language Acquisition
• Noam Chomsky • We are born with a
language acquisition
device; enables us to
learn understand the
deep structure of
languages. Hence, need
exposure to language.

Genetic influences on behaviour

• Gregor Mendel (1860s) conducted experiments on

heredity.
• Genotype: the specific genetic makeup of the individual
• Phenotype: the individual's observable characteristics

Genetic influences on behaviour (cont.)

• Chromosomes: a double-stranded and tightly coiled

molecule of DNA
• Genes: biological units of heredity

3
 15/02/2019

Genetic influences on behaviour (continued)

Behaviour genetics
• Behaviour genetics: how heredity and environmental
factors influence psychological characteristics
– Family studies
– Adoption studies
– Twin studies

Behaviour genetics (continued)

4
 15/02/2019

Behaviour genetics (continued)

• Concordance rates: trait similarity

• Heritability statistic: the extent to which the differences in
a phenotype can be attributed to differing genes

Phenotype VS Genotype

The role of learning

• How do we learn?
– Learning is a process of personal adaptation.
– Behaviourism: laws of learning that apply to virtually all
organisms
• organism is initially a 'blank slate'

The role of learning (continued)

• Why do we learn?
– Ethology: evolutionary differences
between species
• Adaptive significance: behaviour influences
chances of survival and reproduction
• Fixed action pattern: instinctive behaviour
automatically triggered by a particular
stimulus

5
 15/02/2019

Learning and evolution

• Environment shapes behaviour in two ways:

– Species adaptation: influence from environment
through natural selection
– Personal adaptation: our interactions with immediate
and past environments

Learning and evolution (continued)

• Shared environment:
members experience many
common features
• Unshared environment:
experiences that are unique

Twin Study Methodology

A A

C
E E

Twin 1 Phenotype Twin 2 Phenotype

6
 15/02/2019

Twin Study Methodology

MZ=1.0 DZ=.5
A A

C
E E

Twin 1 Phenotype Twin 2 Phenotype

Genes, environment,
intelligence

Heritability – around .7-.8 in adults

Remember Watson …

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-

formed, and my own specialised world
to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to
take any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might
select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant
chief, and yes, even beggarman and
thief, regardless of his talents,
penchants, tendencies, abilities,
vocations, and race of his ancestors.”
21

7
 15/02/2019

Genes, environment,
intelligence (cont.)
• Heritability of intelligence:
– More common genes = more similarity in IQ scores
• Environmental determinants:
– Shared family environment
– Environmental enrichment and deprivation
– Educational experiences

Personality development

• Five Factor (OCEAN) Model:

– Openness to experience
– Conscientiousness

– Extraversion-introversion

– Agreeableness

– Neuroticism

Personality development
(continued)

8
 15/02/2019

Personality development
(continued)

• Environment and personality

development:
– Shared environment contributes very
little.
– Unshared environment is important.

Where does this leave the

psychopath?

• Prison? • Hospital?

9
 15/02/2019

• Are psychopaths unable

to learn?
– Lykken (1957)
– Avoidance learning
– Example – 2 correct

• Are psychopaths unable to

learn?
– Lykken (1957)
– Avoidance learning
– Example – 2 correct
• Learn sequence of 20
trials
• •Psychopaths made the
most shocked errors

Schmauk (1970): Different Punishers

60

50

40

30 Control
Pris_Psyc
20

10

0
Physical Social Money

10
 15/02/2019

Where does this leave the

psychopath?
• Prison? • Hospital?

– Next: The secret attractiveness of Donald Trump

–The End
Remember:
Feel free to ask
questions
now by coming to
the front!

32

11