The Origin of White Collar Criminality? – Exploring a Gene x Environment Interaction Hypothesis

Tage Alalehto

doi:10.6000/1929-4409.2018.07.14

Authors

Tage Alalehto Department of Sociology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2018.07.14

Keywords:

White collar crime, biosocial criminology, mechanisms, formal logic.

Abstract

The aim for this article is the elementary question: why does white collar criminals become white collar criminals? The answer is a hypothetical syllogistic constructed hypothesis for further empirical exploration in the agenda. The hypothesis takes its point of departure in biosocial criminology, especially the gene-environment interplay, focused on white collar criminality. The hypothesis proposes a link between criminal attitudes and criminal behavior based on how biological (e.g. intergenerational heredity, MAO-A), neurological (e.g. executive functioning, cortical thickness) and social-psychological/sociological factors (e.g. peer-group, rationalizations, social stress, loss of class status) correlates to each other as a system of mechanisms.

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