Age of father influences prosocial behavior in offspring

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http://neurosciencenews.com/social-development-parent-age-6552/
Summary: In a UK based sample of 15,000 twins between the ages of 4 to 16 were studied to find out if the age of the father when the children were born affects their social development.  The study found the fathers under the age of 25 and over the age of 51 had an increase in prosocial behavior.  Though the children of the Dad’s over 51 lagged behind their peers in prosocial behavior when they reached adolescents.  They found that social development was influenced more by genetics than environmental factors.  They also revealed that as the father got older the genetics had more of an impact on the child.  They believe that these genetic differences are likely traceable to alteration in brain maturation.


Reflection: I found this study interesting for multiple reasons.  One being that the study implies that nature is more important than nurture when it is related to social behavior.  I always believe that social behavior was influenced more by your environment than your genetics but this implies the opposite.  I found also like to see if these results can be replicated in children in America.  This information would be beneficial to know as the age of people having babies increasing in America.  It would also be interesting to see what areas of the brain may influence the changes in prosocial behavior in their offspring.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 1, 2017 at 5:45 PM

    This article sparked my interest because I have friends whose parents are significantly older or younger than my own, and when I see how they behave I try to connect it back to this study. I believe many factors contribute to this as well including presence of siblings, relationship quality with parents, and more because I have seen people my age with older fathers who are not as social as others. This is a very interesting article and I feel as though further research is needed in order to understand the link between nature and nurture relating to prosocial behaviors.

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  2. Alexa MendelMay 1, 2017 at 6:23 PM

    I agree with you about thinking that nurture was more important than nature when it comes to social behavior. Even though this article implies that nature is more important, I definitely still believe that nurture plays a large role too. In my opinion, someone's genetics determines how they will act, but nurture decides which of those qualities will be presented or not. It was interesting to hear that the father's age plays a large role in social behavior because you would not really think that those two things would be strongly correlated.

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  3. torismithMay 1, 2017 at 9:31 PM

    The nature versus nurture debate has been ongoing. This study found that nature, or a persons genes were more influential on social behavior than nurture, the environment. I believe that both factors are extremely important to a person. In this case genetics proved to have a bigger impact on social development. Some people have genes that make them more outgoing or extraverted and others may have genes that make them more shy or introverted. The environment they are raised in plays a roles as well, but in this case the genes are linked more heavily to their behavior. This topic relates to our study of genes in class. A gene is the most basic biological unit that directs cellular processes, and transmits inherited characteristics. This study continues the debate of nature versus nurture and their effects on us.

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