DOES PERSONALITY COME FROM NATURE OR NURTURE? Carol Tavris says in her review of Daniel Nettle’s PERSONALITY that “Behavioural-genetic studies have consistently found that the heritability of personality traits… is around 50 per centâ€â€”that is, attributable to genetic differences. But the shared environment of the home has only a weak correlation with personality traits. “Nurture‗defined and measured broadly—has little measurable effect on personality. There is speculation that individual life events and choices account for the other fifty per cent, but I think the best way to summarize the review is that there is no agreement on the remaining fifty per cent. All this leaves a lot of room for novelists. And maybe, as I posted on here, on Colin McGinn’s view of Shakespeare, it leaves a person free in part to choose a personality.
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There’s a difference between environment and between individual experience.
For example, a childhood friend and I grew up in the same town, with attentive, affluent parents. This incident occurs at age 3. Let’s say my mom takes me with her while she shops at Palmer’s, an upscale grocery store, and his mom takes him with her while she shops at Stew Leonard’s, another upscale grocery store.
Now, Stew Leonard’s has all kinds of “wacky” stuff in the store that they claim is for kids – dancing animatronic milk cartons and broccoli and so forth. They also have a cow the size of the Hindenburg on the wall that will moo if you push a button.
Childhood friend might have some sort of phobia or uncertainty or something based on that event which would never have been picked up on in a study looking for “environment”.
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