Nature vs Nurture

[Morm]

Lanturn314 and I were talking about this today and I thought it would be a good topic to throw down here.

I am a STRONG advocate of nature. Your environment may play a part, but your nature determines how you react to that stimulus in the first place. Some examples:

A man is naturally resistant to developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He goes to Vietnam and experiences all kinds of horrors and comes back completely fine.
A woman who is naturally susceptible to PTSD gets breast cancer which is cured with no issue and fully loved and supported by family and friends and doesn't even lose her breast develops PTSD.

In this example, you can see plainly that with differing stimulus, different outcomes. You'd honestly expect the male to develop it, but in this case his nature was resistant to the development of the condition. Meanwhile the woman had a comparably minor stimulus which caused her to develop it.

Man #1 goes to vietnam and develops PTSD
Man #2 goes to vietnam, in a hypothetically identical experience, and does not develop PTSD.

In this example, you can see the stimulus is exactly the same. One person develops it, the other does not. The stimulus is there, I'm not saying the nurture part doesn't exist, but the nature of these two individuals dictated how it was internalized and assimilated into their personalities.

There is a condition called phenylketonuria. If a person with phenylketonuria ingests certain quantities of phenylalanine, they become mentally retarded. if not, they develop normally and you can't even tell the difference between them and a person without the condition. Whether or not they develop retardation depends entirely upon them ingesting phenylalanine, aka how they interact with their environment.

This is a great example, from Lanturn, about why nurture is important. She raises a good point in that if they are nurtured right, aka not given phenylalanine, they develop normally. The argument can be made that this is a case where nurture would have the upper hand, though I would strongly point out that if it was not within this persons nature to have phenylketonuria, the stimulus would be 100% benign. So therefore, it's actually nature that takes the dominant role in this example as well.

I am not saying nurture does not exist, I am simply saying that nature is the one calling the shots based on what nurture does. I don't want to see people pop in and say "Omg it's a complex interaction" and leave it at that. There is a more finite answer and I think we can logically discuss it.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Genetics definitely plays a huge role, and I'm not about to argue with Morm on that.

Some interesting studies come from research on identical twins separated at birth. I can't remember the details, but I read about some examples in my intro psych class in college.

One was something like:

"John woke up next to his wife Mary, one gray Monday morning. Got up, went downstairs, and poured himself a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats and rice milk. His lab retriever, Sunny, came into the kitchen and tugged on his night robe.

Nothing about John would be interesting, except that in a neighboring town, all of the above was true for James, down to the name of the wife, dog, bedroom wardrobe and choice of breakfast cereal. John and James are twins separated at birth."

There are records of separated twins (or regular twins) having recorded interviews, and then quized to see if they can tell whether the recording played back to them is themself or their twin. It's 50-50!

There was also an example of two twins being raised by extremely different relatives in different countries. One of them is a devout protestant with a life devoted to the church. Another is a radical Neo-Nazi.

...but they both frequently drink the same Scotch on the rocks, have a habit of unconciously swishing swishing the Scotch counter-clockwise in their left hand on the table, drink and talk at the same intervals, and smoke the same brand of cigar.

 

[Trax]

Some combination of the two is usually the best answer, the issue I take with your PTSD example is it fails to account for how nurture factors may have shaped the two personalities to begin with - they have different stimuli before they go to Vietnam, they may share some characteristics but they're entirely different people due to both their nature and experiences (essentially nurture).

Nature isn't a single static set of characteristics because experiences* change your nature.


*I'll note here that I think it's significant experiences that result in a change of nature, to take a somewhat anecdotal example; as a child, my parents very rarely resorted to physical punishment, however when they did it brought about a change in behavior - however it has been noted that physical punishment when used regularly does not cause a change in behavior and I would be inclined to attribute that to the event no longer being as significant.

Edit: somehow this discussion reminds me of the Tachikoma from Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, though I can't say I'm sure why..

 

[Morm]

You're right Trax, it isn't a static set of characters. Nurture does impact it- but nature determines that reaction. As the reactions pile up, it's still nature guiding under those circumstances. You can think of every single nurture event as a node. When the event happens, nature dictates reaction to personality (or even physiology). So now with this new minute change that nature has dictated the reaction of, the next node comes along and you might react differently than you would have if the original node hadn't been changed in that discrete way.

So effectively, nature guides the reaction caused by nurture which then creates a minute change. This change is taken into account with nature (I need to stress, again, that nature guided it in the first place as a reaction) and how nature reacts to the next nurture event. It's still nature guiding it extremely heavily in a cumulative effect.

I hope that wasn't too circuitous.

 

[Oglemi]

I don't get why the term is still called Nature Vs. Nurture, when it is so obviously a combination of the two. There are multiple studies from both sides that say that one is more important than the other for various reasons.

Imo, there is no guiding or determining factor. It's simply how you were influenced by your parent's genes, how you were influenced in your mother's womb, and how you were raised by your parents (or lack thereof).

The twin example that Chou gave is a perfect example as to how your parent's genes and your experience of your mother's womb can have your likes/dislikes and idiosyncracies. But you can't tell me that those twins were exactly the same in every way possible, because not even identical twins that live in the same home have the same personality. Any differences between the two could be explained by how they were raised.

idk i'm kind of rambling and i may come back and touch up on stuff here, but this is what i think

 

[J-man]

When it comes to nature vs nurture, my opinion would be that a majority of behaviour influence comes from nature, but nurture will teach people how to behave in certain situations. I just say both play their fair share in influence.

 

[Cooper]

I can elaborate a bit more on twin studies Chou, I took a child development class last quarter for my psych major. There have been multiple experiments done with siblings, the two most significant being adoption studies and twin studies.

Adoption studies essentially compare similarities and differences between fraternal twins who've been raised together, and non-related adopted siblings raised together. The idea behind them is that any similarities the genetic twins have with each other that aren't observed in the adopted siblings will be due to genes, considering that both pairs were raised in similar environments. As far as I know, studies have found no substantial differences between the two.

The other twin study is conducted between identical twins raised apart from birth. It's a bit harder to test considering that the parents have to voluntarily put the twins up for adoption and those twins have to be adopted by different sets of parents, but it does happen. Like you said Chou, when researchers reunited these twins later and compared them, a lot had similar habits and lifestyles, sometimes down to the names of wives and pets, or injuries sustained as children.

The conclusion researchers have come to is that genes contribute to about 50% of your personality overall. What's interesting to me is where the other 50% comes from. Parents? Friends? How you interact with the landscape around you? All of it is extremely important, though I'm inclined to believe that peer relations are the most meaningful contribution to your personality as a young adult and on.

 

[Mountain Dewgong]

During my secondary and tertiary studies we were always told to refer to genes as 'genetic potential', a child from Mozambique has the potential to be 6'3" and 200 pounds but if he isn't nurtured correctly he sure as fuck won't get there.

The lack of nutrients would inhibit bone and muscle growth and production of growth hormones to save energy for more 'vital' processes.

I agree with morm in the fact that nature provides a more concrete and intangible template, if an individual has trisomy 21, or faulty enzyme involved in the production/processing of skin pigments then there's not much that nature (or human technology) can do to prevent them having down syndrome or albinism respectively.

But in cases like personality or intelligence I don't believe it is so clear cut. If an individual has two intelligent parents and is a genius is it because of his genes or his up bringing? Not much can be tested short of taking babies from smart parents and letting them be raised by not as smart parents. Which could be dubious at best without controls, large test groups and 'blinded' participants/parents. Not even mentioning the ethical concerns lol.

 

[Morm]

Imo, there is no guiding or determining factor. It's simply how you were influenced by your parent's genes, how you were influenced in your mother's womb, and how you were raised by your parents (or lack thereof).

I'd still say that nature is wearing the daddypants, so to speak, because how you react to stimuli, whatever it may be, is determined by genetics.

The VS part is just because of differing opinions on what is dominant.

But in cases like personality or intelligence I don't believe it is so clear cut. If an individual has two intelligent parents and is a genius is it because of his genes or his up bringing? Not much can be tested short of taking babies from smart parents and letting them be raised by not as smart parents. Which could be dubious at best without controls, large test groups and 'blinded' participants/parents. Not even mentioning the ethical concerns lol.

There is still a personality template for the person and along with the nodes I mentioned, a child may have the potential to be witty and intelligent but upbringing can alter that. How That child may not meet their potential because of upbringing and how their nature interacts with that upbringing. Nature always gets the last laugh, but nurture is an instigator.

The conclusion researchers have come to is that genes contribute to about 50% of your personality overall. What's interesting to me is where the other 50% comes from. Parents? Friends? How you interact with the landscape around you? All of it is extremely important, though I'm inclined to believe that peer relations are the most meaningful contribution to your personality as a young adult and on.

I don't believe that for a second. Saying half comes from genetics is just a way the researches can acknowledge both sides in a stalemate without committing to an argument. Absolutely your peer interactions are paramount to developing who and what you are. However, if you have (for example) psychopath tendencies then obviously that will change how your interactions go down and as a result, how your personality develops. Your natural tendencies dramatically influence how your interactions and the nurture side go, so along with my previous arguments, it's pretty clear to me that nature is far more dominant than 50/50.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

I am on the Nature side.

For example, even if I train 252 atk evs into a modest groudon, an adamant groudon WITH THE SAME EXACT TRAINING will be stronger.

 

[Trax]

You're right Trax, it isn't a static set of characters. Nurture does impact it- but nature determines that reaction.

This is where it gets interesting because you have the cumulative impact of nurture upon nature due to experiences, I would propose that it is actually something of a layered relationship.

Previous experiences change how current and future ones will change nature, an experience doesn't change how nature responds to that experience, it changes how nature responds to future experiences - how it changes nature is determined both by both the existing nature and the actual experience (to say it is purely down to nature is to state that the actual content of the experience has no impact).

Because experiences are themselves different, the differences have an impact on the change in nature brought about by a given experience. At this point you can make any judgment about which has more impact on how nature is changed; I'd say it's largely irrelevant as without both there is no change (and as such, both are equally important in the act of change).



Due to the fact I'm really quire tired right now, I think I'm going to go get some sleep (before I go off on another mental tangent about fate and free will, which is alarmingly closely related to this discussion incidentally) so I won't be posting here again for a while.

 

[Glen]

I don't get why the term is still called Nature Vs. Nurture, when it is so obviously a combination of the two.

this and only this. i really don't understand this "debate". both are imperative in facilitating the formation of the self, undermining one or the other seems senseless to me. "yeah but which one is more important?" is unanswerable as how can we possibly quantify importance in even a single case let alone all of humanity? not everyone exhibits the same level of malleability.

you may as well be asking "wheels vs engine, what has a bigger influence on a car's ability to move (without an incline)?"

"engine obviously, the car wont start without it!"
"yeah but with no wheels the engine doesn't do anything so it's obviously the wheels!"

granted unlike in that situation you can isolate a human to the point where there are few to no external stimuli, but really, how can you say that such a person's personality (of course it goes a bit beyond personality but then again i can't think of a definition for personality aside from "a composite of all the ways a person would react to various situations" so idk i guess personality fits) wouldn't be a response to a world devoid of stimulus? lack of nurture as nurture.

i wouldn't consider lack of stimulus an actual stimulus for anything except a human, but since we have such an impressive level of cognitive and heuristic potential, not to mention our adaptability, i think it's a safe assumption that complete and total neglect would be considered a stimulus, at least as far as brain development goes.

 

[Lanturn314]

this and only this. i really don't understand this "debate". both are imperative in facilitating the formation of the self, undermining one or the other seems senseless to me. "yeah but which one is more important?" is unanswerable as how can we possibly quantify importance in even a single case let alone all of humanity? not everyone exhibits the same level of malleability.

you may as well be asking "wheels vs engine, what has a bigger influence on a car's ability to move (without an incline)?"

"engine obviously, the car wont start without it!"
"yeah but with no wheels the engine doesn't do anything so it's obviously the wheels!"

granted unlike in that situation you can isolate a human to the point where there are few to no external stimuli, but really, how can you say that such a person's personality (of course it goes a bit beyond personality but then again i can't think of a definition for personality aside from "a composite of all the ways a person would react to various situations" so idk i guess personality fits) wouldn't be a response to a world devoid of stimulus? lack of nurture as nurture.

i wouldn't consider lack of stimulus an actual stimulus for anything except a human, but since we have such an impressive level of cognitive and heuristic potential, not to mention our adaptability, i think it's a safe assumption that complete and total neglect would be considered a stimulus, at least as far as brain development goes.

I completely agree with this post as well as Oglemi's-- it's what I've been trying to advocate all along. Nature and nurture are both important, and it's really not possible to determine which is more important in shaping us, nor is it really logical to do so, anyway. We are certainly not blank slates, but our genes don't necessarily carry all the information we need to become functional human beings either.

Take, for example, the development of ocular dominance columns in your primary visual cortex (this could be kinda hard for non-neuro people, but bear with me). Each side of the brain gets input from both your right and your left eye, because the right eye and the left eye both receive inputs from the right and left visual fields like so:

Hide

and in order for the brain to perceive a meaningful image, the right visual field and the left visual field are represented on the left side and right side of the brain respectively. For depth perception to occur, ocular dominance columns occur--regions whose input comes from a particular eye. The path from receptor to visual cortex is somewhat complicated, but I'll sum it up by saying that the ganglion cells in the optic nerve terminate in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus, and the neurons coming from there terminate on visual cortex; all of these are well-segregated by location in visual field. The process by which this occurs happens prenatally, but the actual connections are refined postnatally.

During normal development, the segregation of right-eye columns and left-eye columns begins before birth-- the ocular dominance columns start to segregate by the end of the third trimester.


One thing that does happen after birth is that the borders between ocular dominance columns become much sharper. Overlap between LGN axons exists at birth so that right-eye and left-eye columns meet and run together at the borders between columns. With even a short period of normal pattern vision in the two eyes, the borders sharpen as the overlap among axons disappears.

This figure depicts ocular dominance columns just after birth, in a normal adult, in a left-eye deprived individual (which we'll get to later), and a strabismic patient (bottom right, not really relevant, so disregard). Note the overlapping of the borders in the neonate and how they stop overlapping so much .

So here's where the post starts becoming relevant: during the first five years of a human's life, the sizes of ocular dominance columns and the sharpness of column borders can be changed by visual activity.

Section A of this figure shows the normal pattern of ocular dominance columns in monkeys, whereas section B shows the pattern of ocular dominance columns in which monkeys have had their left eye sutured shut early in life. In section B, the columns driven by the open eye (bright bands) expand dramatically whereas the columns driven by the closed eye (dark bands) shrink dramatically. Even though the column widths were the same at birth, a brief period of deprivation in one eye leads to a huge re-arrangement of axon terminations in the primary visual cortex. Open-eye axons sprout into new territory as closed-eye axons are pruned away.

So you see, while nature provides guidance cues for these neurons to form ocular dominance columns before birth, it is only after birth upon exposure to visual stimuli that the boundaries between them get clearly defined. Without visual stimuli, the neurons lacking input are pruned. Thus, the environment clearly has a large influence on the overall layout of the ocular dominance columns-- a lack of visual stimulus in one eye during the critical period of its development can lead to blindness in that eye simply due to circuit rewiring in visual cortex. This is a prime example of the complex interaction between genes and the environment, as one cannot be said to be more important than the other here.

tl;dr
NATURE dictates that the neurons should be pruned if they don't receive enough input.
NURTURE dictates what input they receive and therefore which neurons are pruned and which survive.
BOTH are really fucking important if you want to be able to see correctly.


I might not have explained this well enough, so if you have any questions about material I may have glossed over, please let me know. I also can provide numerous other examples of this.

 

[Morm]

It's not really a debate of is it one or the other it's a debate over which one is the most predominant.

 

[Lanturn314]

Does it even matter which is more predominant though? I mean, they're both really important. And the boundaries between them are sometimes fuzzy, too. For example, when we think of one cell in a multicellular organism, does the extracellular environment count as nurture or as nature? It is the product of the activities of the other cells, but the one cell doesn't really know that or care: put the same chemicals in a lab dish and you will get the same reaction. The cell's reaction is what it was programmed to do by nature, but the environmental signals are what caused it to react at that moment.

This argument is pretty meaningless imo. Somewhere (I don't remember where), I read someone refer to this as "nature via nurture," and I really think that's the best way to describe it.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

i think saying which is predominant is a still a little too broad, predominant in affecting what? personality? intelligence? the list goes on.

 

[Morm]

Actually, it's not meaningless. If you determine it's nature then you end up with people that can pass up shortcomings as genetic and use medication, if you determine it's nurture then you have a bunch of people that will pass off shortcomings as environmental and go to a therapist for a nice chat.

Predmoninant in personality, poppy.

This is why mental health is such a quagmire of shit- nobody wants to pin a cause, nobody wants to get their hands dirty because they all want to do is not be wrong. It provides zero ability to move forward and actually figure out why people are the way they are. It's no different than saying "we don't know", which isn't exactly a trait that has gone on humanity. Hell, even religious folk have an 'answer' but they don't give a shit about being wrong.

I'd say this debate is completely important for treatment of defects affecting personality.

 

[Myzozoa]

Lanturn314 and I were talking about this today and I thought it would be a good topic to throw down here.

I am a STRONG advocate of nature. Your environment may play a part, but your nature determines how you react to that stimulus in the first place. Some examples:

A man is naturally resistant to developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.He is has a genetic predisposition for being able to deal with trauma and stress you mean. He goes to Vietnam and experiences all kinds of horrors and comes back completely fine.
A woman who is naturally susceptible to PTSD gets breast cancer which is cured with no issue and fully loved and supported by family and friends and doesn't even lose her breast develops PTSDPTSD doesnt really work like that, its a response to specific traumatic event(s), how could this woman have classic PTSD symptoms like flashbacks and night terrors the development of which is preceded by acute stress disorder, there is no stimuli, no specific trigger. Unless you think that the doctor was especially harsh when he delivered the diagnosis? Im not an expert but I would say that any psychiatrist who diagnoses this woman with PTSD is full of shit, she may develop various phobias and have panic attacks and panic disorder but PTSD doesnt make sense. It is different from these conditions..

In this example, you can see plainly that with differing stimulus, different outcomes. You'd honestly expect the male to develop it, but in this case his nature was resistant to the development of the condition. Meanwhile the woman had a comparably minor stimulus which caused her to develop it.

Man #1 goes to vietnam and develops PTSD
Man #2 goes to vietnam, in a hypothetically identical experience, and does not develop PTSD.

In this example, you can see the stimulus is exactly the same. One person develops it, the other does not. The stimulus is there, I'm not saying the nurture part doesn't exist, but the nature of these two individuals dictated how it was internalized and assimilated into their personalities.

If you only go on BF Skinner's and other behaviorists' theories (imo all of whom are shitty psychologists) this a reasonable conclusion. How you think (your cognition) affects how you react to life's challenges. One person's thought patterns might be global-internal- stable and the other person's could be global-external-stable. and that alone might be enough to account for the differences in reaction to the same event. It could be as simple as having drastically different childhoods, or hell, how their war experience had been leading up to this traumatic events. Im in a mood to humor behaviorists, so ill even go and say that one of them may have been systematically desensitized to the harshness of war, either during the war or during their prior life. A student raised in a WASP suburb reacts differently than that guy who joined the Army to escape the slums of South Central LA. The irony is that their environment conditioned them to respond in a certain way, not any predispositions.

Lanturn's Example

this is not environmental, this is biological, what chemicals you randomly ingest/are fed to you at 1 month old is not an intentional interaction with your environment. You might as well say that your mother drinking alchohal during pregnancy is an environmental factor, not a biological one. Logically, what food is available to you is an environmental factor, however until you have the power to choose what you eat, it might as well be something you inherited, as you have just as little control over that as what you are fed as a 1 year old.


I am not saying nurture does not exist, I am simply saying that nature is the one calling the shots based on what nurture does. I don't want to see people pop in and say "Omg it's a complex interaction" and leave it at that. There is a more finite answer and I think we can logically discuss it.

It is a complex interaction, and while things like IQ (which is a shitty example, oh wait this is the internet so we can be as elitist as we want?) are correlated strongly with heredity, predispositions are DISPOSITIONS, Women in my family are genetically predisposed to bipolar disorder, no shit, but only 1 woman (living) has developed it, biological predispositions are not a guarentee of how someone will turn out. there are people who have chemical imbalances that lead to depression, but just giving them meds doesnt make their depression go away permanently, rather the most affective treatment is always meds in tandem with traditional therapy.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

well, if it's on personality then after observing a few posts for chou toushio and others about twin studies which I have also studied (if only at a lower level, read: highschool psych) there were vast amounts of differing, contradictory results of nature (genes) and nurture (upbringing) so i can't really say anything conclusive, yet, with that knowledge my personal opinion is that nature is predominant. However, that is obviously ignoring extreme circumstances such as conditioning and oppression, etc. there certainly would be a point whereby nurture can override nature but in today's society to consider the predominant demographic of upbringing where there is fluctuation but not that much to the extent that it radically affects (i.e. they would be a completely different person given the 'nurture' at both the top and bottom of the demographic). as an example, I believe that there was reasonably conclusive evidence that sexual preference was innately genetic? (i don't want to start a shitstorm on this, it's just what i've read / heard, prove me wrong by all means). i believe this would be the case with a lot of disorders, and general personality-based idiosyncrasies, certainly some of them would be INFLUENCED by nurture but it is my opinion that it can be predominantly attributed to innateness (nature).

 

[Morm]

Thanks for picking apart my examples, Myzozoa, it doesn't make a difference. For the record, there actually is a correlation between breast cancer and PTSD, as well as other stress related disorders...something like 90% prevalence.

So I'm guessing your standpoint is that they both apply but you don't really say to what degree...just like everyone else.

 

[Myzozoa]

Thanks for picking apart my examples, Myzozoa, it doesn't make a difference. For the record, there actually is a correlation between breast cancer and PTSD, as well as other stress related disorders...something like 90% prevalence.

So I'm guessing your standpoint is that they both apply but you don't really say to what degree...just like everyone else.

Believe it or not, this same topic is practically debated every second of every day somewhere, I promise. And to this day no one has concluded that it is one way or the other or that one is more influential than the other. Im sorry we wont get to make the sweeping generalizations that everyone loves so much. This is because in each individual case there are different factors with varying degree of importance. There is a reason why case studies are prevalent in psychological research, also why the handbook is called the diagnostic and STATISTICAL manual.

EDIT: Im getting a 11% correlation for breast cancer and trauma disorders(acute stress disorder and PTSD) although this was just one study i randomly googled so this should be viewed skeptically. Depression and general anxiety disorder appear to be common as well, which makes sense to me more than PTSD. To quote an observation from the study: 'Experiences most frequently described as traumatic were the cancer diagnosis itself and subsequent feelings of uncertainty...The diagnosis of a life-threatening illness has been included as a potential trauma in the DSM-IV. However, it has to be critically evaluated whether subjective feelings of uncertainty like fears of treatment count among traumatic stressors, and thus, whether the diagnosis of PTSD is appropriate in this group of cancer patients.' In another study: 'Use of the recommended cutoff score of 50 on the PCL-C to determine diagnosis of current cancer-related PTSD resulted in a sensitivity of .60' This study did not measure or evaluate any symptoms though, unlike the first study I quoted.

 

[Morm]

So I'm guessing you're a psych student that believes feelings > genetics but doesn't wanna affirmatively say it. That must be comforting. Count on a psych student to say a whole bunch without ever taking a side, that way they can never be wrong. My sister is the other kind of psych student, the one that has an opinion about everything despite knowing next to nothing.

 

[Tomahawk]

I had this with school some months ago and simply put, nature is more important.

Iirc, the nature/nurture ratio was 70/30.

 

[Myzozoa]

So I'm guessing you're a psych student that believes feelings > genetics but doesn't wanna affirmatively say it. That must be comforting. Count on a psych student to say a whole bunch without ever taking a side, that way they can never be wrong. My sister is the other kind of psych student, the one that has an opinion about everything despite knowing next to nothing.

No Im winning with an AP psych class that I didnt study for, sorry. Ive never taken a collegiate psych class :(

And it is very comforting... I do believe that feelings are more important than genetics, though genetics DO play a significant role, if this is a psych thread, lol, tell us why you want us to come to the conclusion that genetics are more important than feelings. How could anyone ever be comforted by the idea that genetics are more important than cognition or feelings...

@tomahawk9: cite a source or gtfo seriously, or at least lie and say that you read something saying that...

 

[Morm]

@tomahawk9: cite a source or gtfo seriously, or at least lie and say that you read something saying that...

Says the guy who is citing his AP psych class after a few chippy, wanna be authoritative posts. At least that guy can take a side instead of arm waving and red herring example hair splitting.

And it is very comforting... I do believe that feelings are more important than genetics, though genetics DO play a significant role, if this is a psych thread, lol, tell us why you want us to come to the conclusion that genetics are more important than feelings. How could anyone ever be comforted by the idea that genetics are more important than cognition or feelings...

Unlike what your admittedly lacking experience and probably biased psych teacher told you, it's not about what comforts you or what people want it's about what is correct. The conclusion comes from the fact that genetics dictate everything from development to how you digest your greasy high school meals every day. Why would it taper off for no reason in matters to do with the personality, the personality which is generated entirely within an organ within a body that is governed by genetics?

Why would anyone assert otherwise?