1

Environment Vs Personality: A violent behavior predictor

Tarren Gomez

Psychology, Salt Lake Community College

PSY1100 Lifespan Development

Brian Riches

06/04/2024
 2

Environment Vs Personality: A violent behavior predictor

Psychology is constantly developing based on new research and advancement in

biotechnology. In psychology it's imperative that we understand how different aspects affect

each other. Most dimensions of psychology are bidirectional, in the sense that two factors may

influence each other. This paper will illustrate the greater impact that personality traits have

developing and predicting future violent behavior in individuals over their environment.

“The self is both a simple and a complex concept. It is not something located inside your

head—it is you, a social being with the ability to engage in symbolic communication and

self-awareness”(Franzoi & Oswald, 2021, P.16). This is fundamental to understand that there are

a multitude of factors coming together to build a person's self and influence their decisions and

behaviors. One of the greatest contributing factors is the environment. For instance, a person

who is raised with a Father that shows an unstable self esteem and is more prone to anger, may

very well create an environment where they passively pass off these traits to the child. This type

of environment will influence a person's behavior negatively. “Exposure to violence strongly

predicts violent behavior”(Estrada et al., 2021). Relating to personality, studies have shown that

“higher level of sadistic impulse was associated with a higher likelihood of aggressive

behaviour…” & “people with sadism may assault others to improve their mood.”(Xie, et al.,2023).

We can see that certain personality characteristics can be predicting factors for violent behavior

in adulthood. But what if we had someone with a predisposition to personality characteristics

that made them more prone to violent behavior and placed them in an environment that
 3

supported nonviolent behavior. Studies have shown that “psychopathy is an important factor

affecting the link between exposure to violence and violent behavior”(Estrada et al., 2021).

Psychological research has shown that children who have a high exposure to violence are more

likely to engage in violent behavior as adults, and that exposure to violence can develop and or

contribute to mental illness later in life (Mitjans et al., 2019).

Conclusion

From this information we can conclude that the environment in which a person is raised

will have a substantial impact on their decision making and lifestyle. These lifestyle choices are

crucial due to the higher or lower risk factor they carry. One environment may create more risk

factors that predict violent behavior, while another environment promotes just the opposite .

Take into account two separate households, one where the family drinks heavily on weekends

partying and engaging in yelling and arguments vs a household that instead plays board games

as a family together on the weekends. You can see how these will garner differences in later

decision making. However, psychopathy and other personality traits have a higher predictability

for violent behavior in adults, due to the inhibition for emotional and impulsive control that

these personality disorders may cause. They are much harder to control and often change vs

environment. They have a high predictability because unlike environmental factors, personality

disorders and certain traits are nearly impossible to entirely overcome. We can then deduce that

a person with high personality risk factors is more likely to exhibit violent behavior over a

person raised in an environment with high risk factors for violent behavior.
 4

References

de Pádua Serafim, A., de Barros, D. M., Castellana, G. B., & Gorenstein, C. (2014). Personality

traits and violent behavior: A comparison between psychopathic and non-psychopathic male

murderers. Psychiatry Research, 219(3), 604–608.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2014.06.026

Estrada, S., Cinguina, M., & Baskin-Sommers, A. (2021). The role of exposure to violence and

psychopathy on violent crime perpetration. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral

Assessment, 43(2), 320–331. https://doi-org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1007/s10862-020-09834-3

Franzoi, Stephen, and Debra L Oswald. Social Psychology. Vol. 8, BVT, 2021.

Mitjans, M., Seidel, J., Begemann, M., Bockhop, F., Moya-Higueras, J., Bansal, V., Wesolowski,

J., Seelbach, A., Ibáñez, M. I., Kovacevic, F., Duvar, O., Fañanás, L., Wolf, H.-U., Ortet, G.,

Zwanzger, P., Klein, V., Lange, I., Tänzer, A., Dudeck, M., … Ehrenreich, H. (2019). Violent

aggression predicted by multiple pre-adult environmental hits. Molecular Psychiatry, 24(10),

1549–1564. https://doi-org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1038/s41380-018-0043-3
 5

Xie, Q., Zhou, B., Bi, T., Yang, B., & Kou, H. (2023). Trait anger and

aggression among male violent offenders: The mediating effect of sadistic

impulse and the moderating effect of emotion regulation. Journal of Psychology

in Africa, 33(1), 10–16.

https://doi-org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1080/14330237.2023.2182968

Carlyle, T. (1993). On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history (Vol. 1). Univ of California

Press.