Killaessedai...
Learn more about sociopathy and psychopathy.
Here's some starting material:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/UW-Mad...web4084984.htm
http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html
Do that first b4 commenting about it. You know some 90% of serial killers are psychopaths.
I think poverty drives crime more than violent video games. But I have little doubt that violent video games might have an influence on some players. For that matter, games are a waste of time.
This is interesting:
http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=3066
Quote:
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We found reduced functioning of the corpus callosum, the band of white nerve fibers that allows communication between the left and the right cerebral hemispheres. We speculate that poor connection between hemispheres may mean that the right hemisphere, which is involved in the generation of negative emotion, 4 may be less well regulated and controlled by the inhibitory processes of the more dominant left hemisphere. This may contribute to how and whether violence is expressed. Interestingly, rats stressed early in life are right-hemisphere-dominant for mouse killing.5 Severing the corpus callosum in these rats results in an increase in mouse killing, 6 indicating that the left hemisphere normally acts to inhibit the right hemisphere’s mouse-killing tendency. Furthermore, researchers have observed inappropriate emotional expression and inability to grasp long-term implications in human split-brain patients (who have had their corpus callosum surgically severed). This suggests that such emotional expression by violent offenders, and their lack of long-term planning, may result in part from poor functioning of the corpus callosum. Callosal dysfunction, though unlikely to cause aggression, may contribute to violence in those with other limbic and cortical abnormalities.
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Research shows that peope who do violent crime more often have more activity in the emotional part of their brain and less in the reasoning part. The same research also showed that they had less activity in the prefrontal cortex. This would indicate a lesser ability to control their emotional outbursts.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0913073401.htm
Some further reading:
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n07/d.../disease_i.htm
Now how prefrontal dysfunction is greater among psychopaths that did not grow up in a deprived household. This is interesting because it seems to defy the notion that poverty causes crime.
It's noted here in the link I just listed:
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...Consistent with our findings through brain imaging, previous research has shown that lack of a normally developed sense of fear in schoolchildren is more often coupled with antisocial behavior if the child comes from a good home environment.10 That is, the biological deficit (poor development of fear) is found in those who display antisocial behavior but lack a social predisposition to it. Not surprisingly, the right orbitofrontal cortex seems important in fear conditioning.
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He kind of continues this here:
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Most prisoners I have met who are suspected of brain dysfunction have no idea that anything is wrong with them. Often they grew up with this problem; it has always been part of them. Even when this is pointed out to them, they believe (like much of the general public) that the causes of their violence lie in poverty, unemployment, bad influences, and (sometimes, but not always), poor parenting and child abuse. They are shocked and disbelieving if I tell them that brain dysfunction and biology contribute to violence. Poverty and bad parenting, after all, can be seen and recognized; biological factors are invisible and intangible. So it is not just that the brain mechanisms underlying responsibility are damaged in the violent offender, preventing him from acting to rectify the causes of his violence. Even if he could reflect on himself, he probably would end up accusing the wrong risk factors.
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He goes on to explore the idea about what it means for society if we cannot blame a violent criminal for their actions. So instead of saying it's a moral failing, we have to say it's a biological failing.
He asks "Could this not become a license to kill?" (if we can't blame them morally and/or punish them)