Kathryn Paige Harden

I think we've all had a situation where we've done something and then later we're like, what was I thinking there?

Why did I do that?

How could I have done this thing that I've come to regret?

Thanks for having me.

So I'm interested in this topic scientifically because I'm a clinical psychologist and I run a research lab where we're looking at genetics of human behavior.

And we're particularly interested in behaviors that are considered wrong, that are considered immoral.

So aggression, fighting, bullying, lying, or behaviors that might be considered wrong, like becoming addicted to alcohol or drugs.

And we're beginning to find specific genes that significantly increase a child's likelihood of growing up to show one of these behaviors.

And we can talk about that from a scientific perspective.

This gene increases your likelihood of becoming aggressive by the time you're 30.

But again, these behaviors are also seen in a moral sense.

And so what I'm interested in now is how do we put together

the scientific work with people's intuitions about how do we respond when people have done something really wrong.

So I got a letter from someone who's in prison in Texas.

He's been there since he was 16.

And he's in prison because he committed a really violent sexual crime that, you know, a very horrible thing.

And he did it when he was a teenager, 15, 16 years old.

And he learned about my lab from an article in Texas Monthly Magazine.

And he wrote to me and he said, why would I do this?

He described his crime and he said, what was going on there?