Nature or nurture: can genes make us behave ‘badly’? - podcast

How much do our genes determine about our lives, and could they influence traits like risk-taking, antisocial behaviour or even violence? Ian Sample talks to Kathryn Paige Harden, a behavioural geneticist and professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin who studies how genetic factors shape human behaviour. In her book Original Sin she explores how nature and nurture combine to influence our likelihood of committing crimes, and asks whether the ‘cause’ of our actions matters f...

By Presented by Ian Sample, sound design by Ross Burns, the executive producer was Ellie Bury