Some People Never Learn
Well, it’s official - some people are genetically predisposed not to learn from their mistakes.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany have found a genetic factor that affects our ability to learn from our errors. The scientists demonstrated that men carrying the A1 mutation, which reduces the amount of dopamine D2 receptors in the brain, are less successful at learning to avoid mistakes than men who do not carry this genetic mutation. This finding has the potential to improve our understanding of the causes of addictive and compulsive behaviors.
And we’re all saying to ourselves, “That explains a lot!”
This is a topic I’ve often thought about, with the goal of trying to figure if success is something that is more inherent in some of us, what we all can do to improve our chances of success (probable answer: just plain old hard work).
But this discovery has interesting implications in the fields of criminal punishment, where at least in the US, rehabilitation is out of vogue. It also is a possible factor that could be used in genetic determinism…, “Bob is A1, so he’ll never learn.” But only if we let it.