Adoption Studies

• Research from adoption studies suggest that genes play a role in aggressive behaviour. To study this further, psychologists use adoption studies where adoptees are compared to their biological and adoptive parents.
• Hutchings et al reviewed 14000 adoptions and found that there is a significant positive correlation between number of convictions for criminal violence in biological parents (especially fathers) and adoptive sons.
• Therefore, this shows that there is a clear link between genetics and aggression.