Ethical Considerations In Research Into Genetic Influences On Behavior

Genetic research in Psychology must be treated with caution. The ethical problems may be seen in Twin Studies and other research. Since modern technology is constantly improving and getting more and more advanced, the research we could perform on the human brain become almost endless.

The twin study conducted in Minnesota was a study in 1990 of twins that was separated from birth, which would remove as much as possible of the factor of the environment playing a major role in creating similarities between the twins. They found out that it seems like genetics play an important role in shaping “our” behavior.

What we could question about this study and its results is the criticism of determinism.  It states that if science discovers a certain genetic cause of behavior, other people might be judged based on the genes, for potential jobs and people can be judged differently in court. For example someone can be judged if their parents were criminals. And other things that are can be questioned as unethical: Is it ethical to reunite twins that don’t even know about each other? When the twins get reunited they will know that they have always had a sibling they didn’t know about and that the research and the result of it could have a impact that could last for the rest of their life.

The determinist argument’s main assumption that employers and the government have access to the genetic records of the citizens, this can be questioned since even though psychological research possibly could discover concrete evidence that genetics influences our behavior, this wouldn’t really matter if people didn’t know their own genetic record. How could we be positive that people don’t look at their records and predict their own future and “outcome” of your life?

How I see it, the best argument against genetic influences behavior research is basically; what exactly is the practical use of it? The information can possibly be deadly if handled by the wrong persons. This is one of the reasons a psychologist must handle that the information about their participants remain confidential, and that the results and the meaning of it doesn’t become public. The main use of it has been helpful for psychologists and scientists to resolve the nature vs. nurture debate going on. Genetic information could actually be helpful in psychological treatment.    

Twin Studies

Even though twins have the exact same genes, their lives are different in many ways. In the study conducted the greater part of the twin couples, lived together, ate the same food and went to the same school for about the first 18 years of their lives. Every single twin got tested for diabetes, heart diseases and depression. In most cases, the genes that were “switched” on in one twin, were switched off in the other twin. The studies show that there is a 30% chance that if one twin has a heart disease, the other one will also have it. These results were found by looking at the differences between the twins, and not the similarities. A famine strikes, but you cannot instantly alter your genes. Epigenetic changes can allow you to produce/make children who are short or tall and whatever is best suited to the new conditions they will grow up and live in. These changes will last for at least two or three procreation, by which time you would hope the changes in the environment will have passed. It may not necessarily. If nothing else, the idea of epigenetic shifts explaining the differences found in twin behavior and illness.

Is Homicide Adaptive Behavior?

To think of homicide behavior as an adaptive behavior may sound crazy, but when you look into it, it becomes clear that there might be something to that. The ability to kill in the human brain must have been around from the start. We have most likely always killed animals for the food, but how can this change to suddenly kill your own species? It has been proved with comparative psychology that other species engage in killing behavior within their own species.

The HAT (Homicide Adaptation Theory), which I believe is correct, states that; humans have evolved with some psychological adaptation for killing, that humans have been hunting/killing animals to survive for a long time if not since the “start”, and that there is a bigger chance for a human being to kill someone for our own chances of reproductive success.

Since we don’t have documents about psychological behavior from the early stages of Humans, the theory is hard to prove, but there has been studies that show clear evidence that the HAT might be right. The adaptation for homicide on spouses was described like this by Shackelford:

“Many spousal homicides results from evolved male mechanisms specifically designed by natural selection to motivate killing under certain circumstances”

A growing number of psychologists have evidence that to understand the reason for killing, we have to study the human brain, genes and evolution. Some psychologists say that murderous actions are usually the by-product of urges towards other goals, and that the purpose of killing is that humans want to have a higher status and greater reproductive success.

There are also many psychologists that believe that; a key condition for an evolutionary account of homicide is an explanation of the fact that most deadly violence is committed by men. Psychologists say that this is because men have evolved to compete more intensively than women in the race for status, material wealth and sexual partners. This competitive homicidal behavior is at its most combustible in men of low socioeconomic status in regions of high social inequality, suffused with a sense of everything to gain and little to lose.