The Hooligan Elements

‘HOW do you make a yob?

”He’s such an expressive child”

It’s a question that has troubled researchers at King’s College London, who set out to try and find what it was that makes a person an antisocial pariah.

The study, as with most studies, involved looking at twins, 3,687 pairs of seven-year-olds to be exact.

One in each pair was given a football shirt, a tattoo and a litre of lemon and strawberry hooch, a small portion of vodka jelly (with bits of tinned fruit in) and then pointed in the direction of the town centre late one Saturday night.

The other was given geography homework.

Of course, they were not. And neither were the twins whipped into a frenzy by being force-fed Turkey Twizzlers and a sweetened cola drink.

This study was rooted in observation. And the findings are that while a yob can be made, a product of environmental factors, such as social and family background, others are born.

What’s more, boys with a version of a gene called MAOA are more likely to develop into anti-social adults, but only if they are also badly treated as children.

Which pretty much all means that if mum and dads are yobs, chances are higher than otherwise that little Euan will be one too.

Or run the risk of letting his parents down…’

Posted: 25th, May 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink