are our personalities/behaviour genetic or learned?

Question

my friend wants to know if his daughters tempers come from their mothers genes or influence, and if it is from the genes, is there a way to prove this?

Answer 1

Both. Anyone who argues exclusively for one or the other is irrational. As to what the balance is, nobody knows.

Answer 2

You question aims at the old problem of nature vs. nurture, which troubled scientists, sociologists and psychologists for quite some while. However, in biology and psychology, this problem has long been put to rest. As many have indicated, the clear answer to the riddle is both. There are however, still some sociologists, who insist on nurture to be the most important determinant of human behavior.

Studies in numerous taxa of vertebrate animals have shown that social and non-social experiences affect the developmen of an individual's behavior. Often, early experiences will send the developmental trajectory into a particular and irreversible direction. Recently, more and more mechanisms by which experiences affect behavior have been identified. Here, epigenetics plays a central role.

An epigenetic effect is not one that alters the genetic code of an individual, but the rate at which certain genes are expressed. Studies in rodents have shown how maternal behavior will affect the expression of certain genes in the brain of pups, thus altering the neural substrates of future behavior. Maltreatment can thus lead to different brain morphologies, which in turn has effects on how these offspring will behave given certain circumstances. Perhaps nowhere else is the interaction of environment and genes so clear as in the case of epigenetics.

Your friend's daughter certainly has a genetic predisposition, but her temperamental behavior cannot be reduced to her genes alone. Her social experiences certainly play a role in how she behaves. Her brain as the neural substrate of her behavior and of her personality develops plastically in response to the interaction of environment and her biology. So, to blame mom alone would be way too simple.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

You just touched on one of the biggest debates in science right now: nature vs. nurture. The short answer: both.

The long answer: It is impossible to separate the biological and circumstantial influences on a person's personality. The best way to study it is studies of identical twins who were separated at birth. They show some similarities that scientists and psychologists attribute to genetics, and some differences that scientists and psychologists attribute to circumstance.

But there is no clear cut answer on how much influence either nature or nurture has. It is different for every person, since every person grows up in a different environment (yes, even siblings and multiple births [twins, triplets, so on]; they have a different birth order and different sets of friends).

Answer 4

This is difficult to prove, as science hasn't mapped every trait on the gentic map.

The answer will be based on the school of thinking you coem from, but I'm going to say a mix of both. The daughters chemical production is simuler to her mother and therfor sets up a biologicaly quick tempered person, then the traits are enhanced by the eniverment, learning how to channel the emotions and how to respond when the chemical production begins.

Hope this helps.

(NOTE, this is my theory, there is going to be no real answer becouse sceince hasne't proven this point yet.)

Answer 5

Personality is a mixture. You acquire the ability to be an angry person from the genes, but if you got raised in a buddhist temple or something then you will not be angry. You require angry stuff around you to be angry. note; if a wolf is separated from it's parents early on it is a playful animal. If left then it learns violence etc off the pack.

Answer 6

genes play a very tiny part of someones natural behaviour. the people around you will shape you and how you react to diferent stimuli in order to get what you want.

Answer 7

It can come from both. most likely the fact that her mother has influenced her by her own behavior has increased her chances of following in her mothers footsteps.

Answer 8

Both

Answer 9

Both.

Answer 10

we only inherit our apperance and not our behavior or personalities

although your parents can change your personality/behavior by the way they raise you...

...in other words if you have posh parents you will probably be posh, if you have fat parents you will probably be fat etc.

do you see?