Biology:The Welfare Trait
The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality is a 2015 book by Adam Perkins, Lecturer in the Neurobiology of Personality at King's College London.[1]
Perkins claims that individuals with aggressive, rule-breaking and anti-social tendencies are over-represented among long-term welfare recipients. He calls this an "employment–resistant personality profile" and finds that it is heritable.[2]
The book was controversial.[3] It initially attracted little attention, with the journal Nature refusing to review it.[2] In 2016, a talk by Perkins was cancelled for fear of disruption.[4] Perkins later wrote "I was no-platformed by student 'radicals' for telling the truth about welfare".[5] That year, Perkins secretly gave a presentation on the book at the London Conference on Intelligence.[6]
The Adam Smith Institute commended the book's "praiseworthy boldness",[7] however the argument was criticised in The Guardian.[8]
A 2017 review in the British Journal of Psychiatry wrote "it is true that there is good-quality evidence for the transmission of dysfunctional personality traits by epigenetic means across generations".[9]
In 2018, a correction to one of Perkins' papers underlying the book identified seven errors.[10]
References
- ↑ "Adam Perkins - Research Portal, King's College, London". https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/adam-perkins(b85ef470-731c-40be-b7f9-2279579d5465).html.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Young, Toby. "Tell the truth about benefit claimants and the left shuts you down". The Spectator. The Spectator. http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/tell-the-truth-about-benefit-claimants-and-the-left-shuts-you-down/. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
- ↑ "Worklessness is not a trait: Why blaming and shaming is not a solution". British Politics and Policy at Lse. 12 April 2016. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/worklessness-is-not-a-trait-why-blaming-and-shaming-is-not-a-solution/.
- ↑ "LSE talk on welfare postponed over fears of disruption". https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/12163821/LSE-talk-on-welfare-postponed-over-fears-it-would-offend-students.html.
- ↑ "I was no-platformed by student 'radicals' for telling the truth about welfare". https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/12171532/I-was-no-platformed-student-radicals-for-telling-the-truth-about-welfare.html.
- ↑ Merwe, Ben van der (9 June 2021). "It might be a pseudo science, but students take the threat of eugenics seriously". New Statesman. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/02/it-might-be-pseudo-science-students-take-threat-eugenics-seriously.
- ↑ "A Review of Adam Perkins's 'The Welfare Trait' «". https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/miscellaneous/a-review-of-adam-perkinss-the-welfare-trait/.
- ↑ "Adam Perkins: 'Welfare dependency can be bred out' | Dawn Foster". 9 March 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/09/adam-perkins-welfare-dependency-can-be-bred-out.
- ↑ Adshead, Gwen (2017). "The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality by Adam Perkins. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. £20.00 (Pb). 201 pp. ISBN 9781137555281". British Journal of Psychiatry 210 (4): 303. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.116.187757.
- ↑ "How the "welfare trap" research championed by Toby Young crumbled under scrutiny". 9 June 2021. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/business-and-finance/2018/05/how-welfare-trap-research-championed-toby-young-crumbled-under.
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