Writer’s Block from June 5, 2010:
In your opinion, how much of our personality is genetic, and how much is shaped by environmental factors?
There was a time not too long ago when I held the opinion that personality was mostly developed by environmental factors. I saw genetics as something that only affected a person’s physical makeup, and considered physical appearance and characteristics strictly a starting point for the development of the overall personality.
It’s a common enough opinion and in line with what I’ve learned through more years of psychiatric treatment than I care to discuss right now. Conventional wisdom says physical makeup (genetics) may predispose someone but only experiences will determine a person’s final personality.
I’m beginning to question that assumption.
It started with a ridiculously simple example: learning that I have my father’s sense of humor. I’ve mentioned before that he died when I was a teenager. I never really encountered his sense of humor in person. While other family members have aspects of his sense of humor, they’re not as similar as mine.
I can explain where my sense of humor came from. I can’t explain why it’s the same as my father’s. We didn’t have the same set of experiences growing up, and there wasn’t enough actual interaction for his sense of humor to have influenced mine.
At the same time, another set of experiences has left me wondering just how strong genetic factors can be in the first place. When I started wearing contacts back in January, one of the first people who saw them made a comment about me having hazel eyes. That startled me; I’ve always been described as having brown eyes, and that’s how I described myself.
A bit of research and a few encounters with a mirror confirmed that they were right: my eyes are hazel. The clincher came when I was in Raleigh this past May and two people told me that my eyes are much lighter than they used to be.
The surprising part is that they’re right too. I have some pictures from when I was a child — back when I had naturally blonde hair — and there’s not a bit of hazel. If eyes are purely genetic then how did mine change colors?
The combined effect of these two experiences has been to convince me that the nature of genetic influence isn’t as well understood as science would like to believe. Given that, I don’t believe that there can yet be a clear answer to the classic nature vs. nurture question. We don’t know enough about the nature side of the equation yet.
Check out the concept of the “Big Five” personality traits — it seems that the large scale “tone” of personality may be genetically “determined”, but the particular way it’s expressed is defined by environment.
Anyway – wikipedia on the Big Five
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
and just because a trait is genetic doesn’t mean it can’t change over time. things develop.
obvious: i wasn’t born with the full traits of a woman at birth. that didn’t hit til puberty and later.