Welcome to the third edition of My Favourite Parts From. This time we’re looking at my highlights from Robert Plomin’s bestselling Blueprint: How DNA makes us who we are. A. the most important environmental factors, such as our families and schools, account for less than 5 per cent of the differences between us in our mental health or how well we did at school – once we control for the impact of genetics. Genetics accounts for 50 per cent of psychological differences, not just for mental health and school achievement, but for all psychological traits, from personality to mental abilities. I am not aware of a single psychological trait that shows no genetic influence.
C. the broad definition of environment becomes even stranger when you realise that genes that influence parenting are categorised under "environment". Same with the fact that parents change the environment for their child more widely, like moving to better areas. It is very much up to your parents and your extended family, or even ethnic group when it comes to what environment it creates. The environment never just "happens" for humans it is the extended phenotype of our genes (Dawkins). This limits what even identical twin studies can capture and overestimates environmental impact versus genetic impact. The Environment vs genes discussion almost always has problems and misunderstandings built into it, at least how it is discussed in the mainstream media.
E. I would guess that's because school achievement is more than just intelligence singled out, it is also about other heritable traits related to how hard you work, if you psychologically can fit in well in a modern school environment and so on.
C. the broad definition of environment becomes even stranger when you realise that genes that influence parenting are categorised under "environment". Same with the fact that parents change the environment for their child more widely, like moving to better areas. It is very much up to your parents and your extended family, or even ethnic group when it comes to what environment it creates. The environment never just "happens" for humans it is the extended phenotype of our genes (Dawkins). This limits what even identical twin studies can capture and overestimates environmental impact versus genetic impact. The Environment vs genes discussion almost always has problems and misunderstandings built into it, at least how it is discussed in the mainstream media.
E. I would guess that's because school achievement is more than just intelligence singled out, it is also about other heritable traits related to how hard you work, if you psychologically can fit in well in a modern school environment and so on.