Deviance: Nature vs. Nurture
Deviance: Nature vs. Nurture
Every society has developed their own rules and principles, and every society contains those who break away from
these norms and expectations. These people are called deviants. All societies throughout history have had these deviants
who refuse to follow the rules set up by the community in which they live. Deviance is necessary, to some degree, for
societies to advance. Without deviance, human culture would stagnate. The causes of deviance, like many other topics, is
up for debate. Some say people are genetically determined to either be deviant or not, some say deviance is caused by the
environment in which they grow up: nature, or nurture.
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many families were studied in order to possibly find a connection
between heredity and criminality or “feeble-mindedness” (feeble-mindedness was a term used in this time period that could
mean a number of things: various forms of mental retardation, learning disabilities, and mental illness). The two most well-
known studies were of the Jukes and the Kallikak families.
The Jukes were first studied in 1874 when a sociologist named Richard L. Dugdale studied the records of 13 prisons in
New York. After researching a number of convicts' genealogies, he found that there was a man, whom he gave the name
Max, born somewhere between 1720 and 1740 who was the ancestor of 76 convicted criminals, 18 brothel owners, 120
prostitutes, over 200 people on welfare, and 2 cases of feeble-mindedness. In 1912, another study was published on the
Jukes, this time by a man named Arthur H. Estabrook, who claimed Dugdale's study hadn't been thorough enough.
Estabrook added more than 2,000 additional people into the group of subjects included under the pseudonym “Jukes,”
raising the total to 2,820.
The Kallikak family was first studied in the same year as the last study on the Jukes was published. Henry
Every society has developed their own rules and principles, and every society contains those who break away from
these norms and expectations. These people are called deviants. All societies throughout history have had these deviants
who refuse to follow the rules set up by the community in which they live. Deviance is necessary, to some degree, for
societies to advance. Without deviance, human culture would stagnate. The causes of deviance, like many other topics, is
up for debate. Some say people are genetically determined to either be deviant or not, some say deviance is caused by the
environment in which they grow up: nature, or nurture.
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many families were studied in order to possibly find a connection
between heredity and criminality or “feeble-mindedness” (feeble-mindedness was a term used in this time period that could
mean a number of things: various forms of mental retardation, learning disabilities, and mental illness). The two most well-
known studies were of the Jukes and the Kallikak families.
The Jukes were first studied in 1874 when a sociologist named Richard L. Dugdale studied the records of 13 prisons in
New York. After researching a number of convicts' genealogies, he found that there was a man, whom he gave the name
Max, born somewhere between 1720 and 1740 who was the ancestor of 76 convicted criminals, 18 brothel owners, 120
prostitutes, over 200 people on welfare, and 2 cases of feeble-mindedness. In 1912, another study was published on the
Jukes, this time by a man named Arthur H. Estabrook, who claimed Dugdale's study hadn't been thorough enough.
Estabrook added more than 2,000 additional people into the group of subjects included under the pseudonym “Jukes,”
raising the total to 2,820.
The Kallikak family was first studied in the same year as the last study on the Jukes was published. Henry