XYY syndrome

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  • XYY Syndrome
    • description
      • a very small popularion of males are born with the extra 'Y' chromosome (1/1000) - has no effect on testosterone levels or sexual development
      • defying characteristics = physically :generally taller and have a lower intelligence emotionally: can be impulsive and experience behavioural difficulties, easily distracted
      • Male exclusive
      • Jacob et al (1965) suggested there was an over representation of XYY men in prison due to aggressive behaviours
    • Weaknesses
      • Stockholm (2012)
        • conducted a study involving 161 males with XYY syndrome that there was a significant increase in the amount of crimes compared to XY controls - increase was seen in all crimes apart from drug and traffic related crimes
        • Issues: when stockholm controlled for factors - education, fatherhood and relationships he found the differences were very small (apart from arson and sexual abuse - these linked to poor development of the pre-frontal cortex in other studies
        • Concluded: raised risk of offending by XYY males was due to socio economic conditions that were related to other syndromes (the additional Y chromosome was not the direct cause of criminal behaviour)
      • unlikely to know true prevelance  extent of XYY as its not practical to look at all genes of offenders
      • does account for femal criminals

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