Do you believe a newborn child is born with certain traits or personalities or do you believe everything is taught (more)?

Certainly Both…..complex/many factors

Babies definitely have personalities. Personalities are not taught. If they were, twins and siblings would all have the same personalities. On the other hand, psychopaths are not born that way. Psychopaths emerge from messed up childhoods and messed up lives.

Not sure about that. Definitely sociopath is learned but I’ve seen toddlers who are entirely without empathy for other creatures. I think that psychopaths are born with a strong propensity for it.

Hmmm maybe you’re right…

It’s a proven scientific fact that personality traits are genetically passed down from your parents :)

Actually, the causes of sociopathy are not fully known. Sociopathy is an often misused term and is extremely closely related to psychopathy. I believe the distinction is actually based on a misnomer. That is that ‘socio’ suggests that originates exclusively from social and environmental interactions, while ‘psycho’ suggests that the disorder originated in the mind itself. If there are genetic bases for sociopathy, then this distinction would be illegitimate; which I think it is. The only distinction I recognise is that sociopaths are typically fully aware of and in control of their antisocial behaviours, whereas the majority of psychopaths are not (though this is not always the case). However, some professionals say that it’s the other way around, and that psychopaths are in complete control, while sociopaths are disorganised and irrational. There is a hell of a lot of debate in the psychological literature regarding the legitimacy of the distinction between the terms ‘psychopath’ and ‘sociopath’, and both tend to refer to the same disorder anyway (Antisocial Personality Disorder).

Some theorise that there are genetic predispositions to sociopathy (or Antisocial Personality Disorder), while others believe that it is learned through isolation and / or abuse. I am a proponent for an interactionist perspective (nature AND nurture) for this one. People with perfectly normal and functional brains can develop sociopathy, but a study many years ago involving a patient with brain damage to the orbitofrontal cortex indicated that there are brain structures relevant to empathy. The patient’s brain damage left him without empathy, care, or understanding of the social consequences of his behaviours. They called his disorder ‘acquired sociopathy’ for that very reason.

You can look at any set of siblings who were raised together and know that both genetics and environment play into a person’s life. So often you’ll have two siblings who are raised by the same parents but they are complete opposites. But at the same time you can have two siblings who have never met each other and be just alike.