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Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?[W:771]

Men: Would you marry an American Woman?


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But the sociopath doesn't become cured and has to rely on medicines to chemically control their brain function. That's not the case with children. With children, it's simply a fact that they are still developing, so I would never refer to a child as a "sociopath."

I was using the term figuratively.
 
Whether one is a child or a sociopath, their amygdala is still not completely functional.

The same applies to liberals:

We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala.​
 
Sociopathy is about 50% heritable, so even if the parents are conscientious in raising their little darling, they could be in for a surprise. On the flip side, recall the era of orphanages - those children had no parents around to teach them empathy and concern for others and the overwhelming majority of orphans weren't sociopaths.

I realize that antisocial disorder is partially heritable. However, its practically universally accepted among psychologists that empathy and other "conscience building" traits have to be instilled at a very young age.
 
The same applies to liberals:

We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala.​

there is a difference between underdeveloped and normally developed but shy of nominal but within tolerance (at least as best we can tell through things like psychology or neuropsychology). nice try though.

Also keep in mind, too big an amygdala and you got problems too, you become like tigger.
 
I realize that antisocial disorder is partially heritable. However, its practically universally accepted among psychologists that empathy and other "conscience building" traits have to be instilled at a very young age.

I'm not sure if it's something that needs to be developed, or if it is something that just happens as the brain matures. I know that with no supervision, the child might be a hellion while young but they might not be as they age. It would be interesting to see some studies on it.
 
However, its practically universally accepted among psychologists that empathy and other "conscience building" traits have to be instilled at a very young age.

Have you read "The Nurture Assumption" by Judith Rich Harris? She does a nice job of demolishing positions that were widely held by psychologists.

Here's my point - all anyone needs do is find an instance which falsifies a widely held hypothesis and then the hypothesis crumbles. Did American orphanages turn out armies of sociopaths? The industrial or factory type of "parenting" from American orphanage caregivers was far different from that of parents, in terms of quantity and quality, and yet children raised in American orphanages in the past weren't all sociopaths.

Secondly, what exactly is the precise technique which parents must use to instill conscience building? What if a parent doesn't know how to do this, does this doom the child to being a sociopath?

What's really going on is a child following a developmental path which is largely determined by their genetic inheritance. Negative environmental influences can certainly have an effect and knock them about, sometimes inducing sociopathic traits, but a "neutral" environment of benign neglect, which is the default mode for most of human history, doesn't harm children.
 
Facts & Statistics

It is estimated there are between 143 million and 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEF report.) The UNICEF orphan numbers DON’T include abandonment (millions of children) as well as sold and/or trafficked children. The current population of the United States is just a little over 300 million… to give you an idea of the enormity of the numbers…

According to data released in 2003 as many as eight million boys and girls around the world live in institutional care. Some studies have found that violence in residential institutions is six times higher than violence in foster care, and that children in group care are almost four times more likely to experience sexual abuse than children in family based care.

Every day 5,760 more children become orphans

Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…

Each year 14, 505, 000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age sixteen

Each day 38,493 orphans age out

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home

Studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen

These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminal
s

Not all sociopaths, sure, but that pretty much destroys your point.
 
Not all sociopaths, sure, but that pretty much destroys your point.

Actually, it doesn't. Keep in mind what I wrote: "Negative environmental influences can certainly have an effect and knock them about, sometimes inducing sociopathic traits, but a "neutral" environment of benign neglect, which is the default mode for most of human history, doesn't harm children."

Your argument depends on the equivalence of orphanage with negative environmental influence. What you have instead is some orphanages which qualify. Those orphanages which do qualify are of the kind that were characteristic of Ceausescu-era Romania. Children having no stimulation, living in wretched conditions, near starvation. American orphanages didn't meet those conditions.

Secondly, high suicide rate and participation in prostitution/crime are more indicative of restricted opportunity and no family support network (doing what one must to survive in the world) than they are of exhibiting sociopathic personality traits.

If you want to falsify my position, best look at the data on American children raised in orphanages before the roll-out of the foster-care system. Boys Town, for instance. See how the children fared. Did a lot of them become sociopaths?
 
Actually, it doesn't. Keep in mind what I wrote: "Negative environmental influences can certainly have an effect and knock them about, sometimes inducing sociopathic traits, but a "neutral" environment of benign neglect, which is the default mode for most of human history, doesn't harm children."

Your argument depends on the equivalence of orphanage with negative environmental influence. What you have instead is some orphanages which qualify. Those orphanages which do qualify are of the kind that were characteristic of Ceausescu-era Romania. Children having no stimulation, living in wretched conditions, near starvation. American orphanages didn't meet those conditions.

Secondly, high suicide rate and participation in prostitution/crime are more indicative of restricted opportunity and no family support network (doing what one must to survive in the world) than they are of exhibiting sociopathic personality traits.

If you want to falsify my position, best look at the data on American children raised in orphanages before the roll-out of the foster-care system. Boys Town, for instance. See how the children fared. Did a lot of them become sociopaths?

While the term sociopathy was used incorrectly (I was being facetious but taken seriously). A child's moral compass is not well shaped by an orphanage. Parents (and that term is also used loosely, because parents can come in many types of arrangements and still be effective) are still required to reform the moral compass a child lacks.
 
A child's moral compass is not well shaped by an orphanage.

1.) Your position presupposes that a moral compass must be shaped. Does this shaping also extend to behaviors like jealousy, anger, temper, moodiness, etc. Do parents train their children in how to be jealous lovers when they are adults?

2.) I'm not arguing that orphanages are ideal institutions for caring for children. What I'm saying is that if an orphanage does no harm, then it's on par with parents who do no harm.

3.) To study the effects of orphanages on the personality development of children, we first need to control for the types of children who get placed into orphanages. A lot of these children are coming into both orphanages and foster-care systems because they already exhibit problem behaviors that their parents can't deal with or they're following the same path as their parents due to the heritability of behavioral traits which were already set when the parent abandoned the child, either overtly or through neglect and had the child removed from their custody. The best kids to look at are those who were placed into the orphanage in times when premarital birth was heavily stigmatized in America for that goes a long way towards addressing the selection effect - it wasn't only problem children who were placed into orphanages.

4.) How could children raised in orphanages EVER develop a moral compass if they had no parents to instill a moral compass into them? Whence comes this moral compass?
 
This is very true. If you don't give your kids the building blocks for empathy and concern for others at a very young age, they can easily grow up to be sociopaths as adults.

I don't believe that. You make it sound as if empathy and concern for others was just a creation of society, but if that was the case why would it even cross the human brain to start teaching such things to children? It is the lack of brain development and experience which are the reasons for the behavior.

There is really no validity to the argument that morality and basic human capabilities like empathy are the creation of society. There is however much to support the argument that society is damaging to these basic capabilities.
 
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While the term sociopathy was used incorrectly (I was being facetious but taken seriously). A child's moral compass is not well shaped by an orphanage. Parents (and that term is also used loosely, because parents can come in many types of arrangements and still be effective) are still required to reform the moral compass a child lacks.

Parents teach a code of conduct, not morals.
 
Parents teach a code of conduct, not morals.

What do you mean? Parents teach right from wrong, and we learn morals from our social environment. A good example is to look at the Mayans who performed human sacrifice. That was okay back then and in their culture, but certainly not in our current culture.
 
What do you mean? Parents teach right from wrong, and we learn morals from our social environment. A good example is to look at the Mayans who performed human sacrifice. That was okay back then and in their culture, but certainly not in our current culture.

To truly understand your morality you must first understand your nature that comes about from self-realization. Culture and society simply act as interference of sorts, but it does not shape the individual morality of people.
 
To truly understand your morality you must first understand your nature that comes about from self-realization. Culture and society simply act as interference of sorts, but it does not shape the individual morality of people.

To an extent, but a lot of it is also taught or perhaps just "expected" behaviors. If you grew up somewhere all alone without any kind of interaction with other people, what would your morals be based upon?
 
1.) Your position presupposes that a moral compass must be shaped. Does this shaping also extend to behaviors like jealousy, anger, temper, moodiness, etc. Do parents train their children in how to be jealous lovers when they are adults?

Yes and hopefully not.

2.) I'm not arguing that orphanages are ideal institutions for caring for children. What I'm saying is that if an orphanage does no harm, then it's on par with parents who do no harm.

Orphanages that do no harm are great, I am even sure a few probably exist somewhere for a few lucky children.

3.) To study the effects of orphanages on the personality development of children, we first need to control for the types of children who get placed into orphanages. A lot of these children are coming into both orphanages and foster-care systems because they already exhibit problem behaviors that their parents can't deal with or they're following the same path as their parents due to the heritability of behavioral traits which were already set when the parent abandoned the child, either overtly or through neglect and had the child removed from their custody. The best kids to look at are those who were placed into the orphanage in times when premarital birth was heavily stigmatized in America for that goes a long way towards addressing the selection effect - it wasn't only problem children who were placed into orphanages.

I am sure for some children this is true, but not 70% of them. which is the incarceration rate.

4.) How could children raised in orphanages EVER develop a moral compass if they had no parents to instill a moral compass into them? Whence comes this moral compass?

You are arguing from an absolute, why?
 
Parents teach a code of conduct, not morals.

They teach both.

Morality, like most things, is a social phenomenon. Morals differ from culture to culture.
 
To an extent, but a lot of it is also taught or perhaps just "expected" behaviors. If you grew up somewhere all alone without any kind of interaction with other people, what would your morals be based upon?

Such a person would basically be "feral." If historical examples are anything to go off of, they tend to be little better than mentally retarded more often than not specifically because of the lack of social stimulation in their developmental environment.

A fairly strong argument can be made that a certain degree of human interaction and social integration is actually necessary for human beings to fully develop, in light of such facts.
 
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Such a person would basically be "feral." If historical examples are anything to go off of, they tend to be little better than mentally retarded more often than not due to the lack of social stimulation in their developmental environment.

A fairly strong argument can be made that a certain degree of human interaction and social integration is actually necessary for human beings to fully develop, in light of such facts.

That's my point, I don't think they would have "morals." They would basically just do whatever they felt they had to survive, but I wonder about a conscience. Is that something that is nurtured or natural? If a "feral" person was to kill another person, would they feel guilt about it? Do you think empathy is something that is taught or is it natural to feel sorry for a person who is suffering?
 
They teach both.

Morality, like most things, is a social phenomenon. Morals differ from culture to culture.

The only true way to understand something is to experience it yourself. I can tell you not to touch fire or you will get burned, but you will never truly understand the nature of fire until you have experience with it. While certain beliefs are either picked up by children or otherwise taught that can in turn change the make up of their moral character, the majority of what they understand as morality comes from personal experience and how they personally see the world around them. Personal growth is not found in the lessons of society, but in the understanding of the nature of things around you and of yourself.
 
Such a person would basically be "feral." If historical examples are anything to go off of, they tend to be little better than mentally retarded more often than not due to the lack of social stimulation in their developmental environment.

A fairly strong argument can be made that a certain degree of human interaction and social integration is actually necessary for human beings to fully develop, in light of such facts.

There are studies upon studies that show this.

The Effect of Human Contact on Newborn Babies | LIVESTRONG.COM
Infants who are touched gently on a regular basis gain weight and grow at better rates than babies who lack this contact. They also spend less time in the hospital after birth and have fewer medical complications in their first year of life.

The Experience of Touch - Research Points to a Critical Role - NYTimes.com
Touch is a means of communication so critical that its absence retards growth in infants, according to researchers who are for the first time determining the neurochemical effects of skin-to-skin contact.

The new work focuses on the importance of touch itself, not merely as part of, say, a parent's loving presence. The findings may help explain the long-noted syndrome in which infants deprived of direct human contact grow slowly and even die.

Psychological and physical stunting of infants deprived of physical contact, although otherwise fed and cared for, had been noted in the pioneering work of Harry Harlow, working with primates, and the psychoanalysts John Bowlby and Renee Spitz, who observed children orphaned in World War II.

and that's just the effect of touch. Humanity is a social creature that needs to be around others to thrive, grow, and basically exist in any healthy way (in most cases, there are a few true loners out there, but they are really rare)
 
There are studies upon studies that show this.

The Effect of Human Contact on Newborn Babies | LIVESTRONG.COM


The Experience of Touch - Research Points to a Critical Role - NYTimes.com


and that's just the effect of touch. Humanity is a social creature that needs to be around others to thrive, grow, and basically exist in any healthy way (in most cases, there are a few true loners out there, but they are really rare)

Yes, but there are cases of feral children.

Fascinating, this particular child lived just like an animal. Do you think he possessed qualities like empathy?

A leopard-child was reported by EC Stuart Baker in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (July 1920). The boy was stolen from his parents by a leopardess in the North Cachar Hills near Assam in about 1912, and three years later recovered and identified. “At the time the child ran on all fours almost as fast as an adult man could run, whilst in dodging in and out of bushes and other obstacles he was much cleverer and quicker. His knees had hard callosities on them and his toes were retained upright almost at right angles to his instep. The palms of his hands and pads of his toes and thumbs were also covered with very tough horny skin. When first caught, he bit and fought with everyone and any wretched village fowl which came within his reach was seized, torn to pieces and eaten with extraordinary rapidity.”

Interesting link here.

http://listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-children/
 
That's my point, I don't think they would have "morals." They would basically just do whatever they felt they had to survive, but I wonder about a conscience. Is that something that is nurtured or natural? If a "feral" person was to kill another person, would they feel guilt about it? Do you think empathy is something that is taught or is it natural to feel sorry for a person who is suffering?

Well, like I said, people raised completely absent of human contact often tend to be less than complete "human beings" in the first place. Most "feral" persons can't even master language or abstract reasoning, let alone social interactions that might require empathy or morality.

As I recall, one rescued "wild boy" in India was actually killed later on because he tried to rape a local woman when he started to go through puberty, and she wound up dumping a pot of boiling water on him.

While they might feel some inkling of emotions and instinctual impulses which can be said to resemble basic "morality," I think it can be fairly said that their understanding of such concepts is, at best, incomplete in comparison to a more typical person. Lacking the stimulation social contact provides, many areas of their brains simply wind up remaining fundamentally undeveloped in many regards, which leaves them mentally deficient coming into adulthood.
 
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That's my point, I don't think they would have "morals." They would basically just do whatever they felt they had to survive, but I wonder about a conscience. Is that something that is nurtured or natural? If a "feral" person was to kill another person, would they feel guilt about it? Do you think empathy is something that is taught or is it natural to feel sorry for a person who is suffering?

empathy is both nature and nurture.

Mirror neuron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Empathy and the brain

For one thing, it turns out nonhuman animals--even rodents--show evidence of empathy.

For another, empathy has a neurological basis.

The same brain regions that process our first-hand experiences of pain are also activated when we observe other people in pain.

There are biological structures strictly dedicated to things like empathy and morality (morality, at least according to Jonathan Haidt is just rules for social structure built into us through evolution (and tend to be emotionally, not logically based), which I am inclined to believe as it is the most complete explanation of what I see people do on a daily basis). However, parents (or some sort of role model/care taker) is needed to take those raw instincts and hone them into something before they atrophy, which was my original point (this time explained in more detail)
 
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