Genetics and Health

Bullies and Their Genes

by Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD on July 15th, 2005

A few months ago, I posted about bullying in my personal blog. I admitted to being one of the more dominant kids on the playground until junior high when I experience some very mild forms of teasing (to which I was oblivious). From the comments I received, it was clear that I didn’t understand the true depths of bullying and how many people had been hurt by it. Results from a recent study published in the July/August issue of the journal Child Development showed that genetic factors appear to explain physical aggression more than social aggression. (Medical News Today, July 14, 2005)

Physical aggression precedes social aggression; genes appear to account for more than half of the difference in physical aggression between individuals but only about 20 percent of social aggression. Not to anyone’s surprise, environmental factors such as parenting and peer relationships influence aggression levels much more strongly. Knowing this, teaching kids at a young age about how to interact positively with each other should go a long way.

As any parent knows, no matter how much we model positive behavior like asking nicely, taking turns, and not hitting, children as young as two years or less will still lash out in socially unacceptable ways. In fact, Dr. Harvey Karp likens toddlers to prehistoric man before the development of language and social niceties. It’s clear that some of our caveman ways are hardwired into our genetic make-up, shaped by evolutionary forces.

I’ve learned over the years that being nice in combination with being forceful/insistent motivates people far more than being nasty. Some bullies on the playground, however, never seem to grow up out of this primitive behavior. It could be that their caveman ancestors had a bigger dose of aggression genes. But it could also be just as likely that the adults around them never really showed them any other way to do things. Knowing that we are genetically predisposed to aggression is no excuse for being a brute and making life hard for those around us.

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POSTED IN: General Genetics and Health