Why is it believed that psychopaths are made and not born?

There is an argument that psychopaths are not born and that their day to day experiences shape their very appearance and violent nature. The experiences they use as their foundation can be anything from their friend’s behaviour to that of their family and the media. There are four main factors that can augment violence; a flight or fight situation such as a threat, assault or challenge that can amplify anger, learning through others techniques and skills of aggression, a mindset that there is a reward from using violence and aggression e.g. (earning praise from others, receiving material goods and reducing frustration) and ultimately a system with a tolerance to acts of aggression and violence in a certain social frame of reference. Whether a child’s environment is good or bad they will learn from it and recreate it as that is their sense of right and wrong.

A large family can, sometimes, indirectly cause a sibling to receive less attention than the others which may affect a mind in a bad way leading to children even going as far as breaking the law to get their family’s desired attention. The child criminals Robert Thompson and Jon Venables both came from large families, suggesting that their acts may have been, in part, a bid for attention. Jon was jealous as his brother and sister both received more attention from their mother while Robert couldn’t remember being cared for as much as his mother was caring for her new baby. So it has happened that the imbalance in a family can lead to a child who feels they get less attention from becoming a killer. Such a person with this kind of imbalance in their life along with abusive parents could start to have an urge to feel superior.