Personality, genetics or influenced?

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2007-10-16 12:47pm

Which factor played a larger role in a person personality? Genetic or simply influenced by family and friends?

Fiji_Fury · Post by **Fiji_Fury** » 2007-10-16 01:09pm

I would suggest family and friend influence over genetics. Personality represents a social interpretation of behavior because we use a persons personality to describe how he/she behaves in the context of social interaction with others.
"She's a bitch"
"What an asshole"
"He's a really good guy"

All of these descriptions are based upon observable behavior between the subject and other people. Personality is a social construct and so I'd give greater influence to the people whom social interaction is mostly learned from: friends and family. Even if you were to consider the "media" as a conglomerate of influences to be more formative than friends and family, you're still talking about socializing influences and not genetics.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2007-10-16 01:27pm

Both. Twin studies show that even those twins separated at birth tend to have similar habits, down even to the style of clothing they like to wear, despite being raised in different families and having no contact with each other whatsoever.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-10-16 01:49pm

What is your definition of behavior? A person who likes sugar over something bitter is a behavior and is determined by genetics.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-10-16 02:08pm

Fire Fly wrote:What is your definition of behavior? A person who likes sugar over something bitter is a behavior and is determined by genetics.

I think you're confusing behavior/personality with preferences. Someone can like sugar but still be an asshole or easy to get along with.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2007-10-16 02:11pm

With something as complex as personality, it's never "one thing or the other." Research has shown time and time again that personality is most likely the result of both heredity and one's environment.

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2007-10-16 02:26pm

I know both are important...but I'm asking which one has a stronger influence or is a stronger factor.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-10-16 02:30pm

General Zod wrote:
Fire Fly wrote:What is your definition of behavior? A person who likes sugar over something bitter is a behavior and is determined by genetics.
I think you're confusing behavior/personality with preferences. Someone can like sugar but still be an asshole or easy to get along with.

Organisms are nearly universally programmed to prefer something sweet over something bitter. If you give an organism the option between the two, it will chose the sweet substance. This is behavior (an organism responding to a given stimulus).

With regards to the original question, it is without a doubt that any form of behavior has a genetic basis and an environmental basis. My point is simply, regarding my prior point, certain behaviors have a definitive genetic basis and you need to clarify what you are asking when it comes to behavior.

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2007-10-16 02:36pm

Fire Fly wrote:
General Zod wrote:
Fire Fly wrote:What is your definition of behavior? A person who likes sugar over something bitter is a behavior and is determined by genetics.
I think you're confusing behavior/personality with preferences. Someone can like sugar but still be an asshole or easy to get along with.
Organisms are nearly universally programmed to prefer something sweet over something bitter. If you give an organism the option between the two, it will chose the sweet substance. This is behavior (an organism responding to a given stimulus).

With regards to the original question, it is without a doubt that any form of behavior has a genetic basis and an environmental basis. My point is simply, regarding my prior point, certain behaviors have a definitive genetic basis and you need to clarify what you are asking when it comes to behavior.

I'm talking about personality as in...how are you prone to anger, are you lazy, how willingly are you to listen to others and etc. Well...mainly other's main impression on a person rather than his minor habits and etc.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-10-16 02:40pm

ray245 wrote:I know both are important...but I'm asking which one has a stronger influence or is a stronger factor.

There is no clear answer. A personality is simply an aggregation of behavioral characteristics and behavior is a gradient with genetic factors at one end and environmental factors at the other end. Certain behaviors are more heavily influenced by genetics and certain behaviors are more heavily influenced by environmental factors.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2007-10-16 02:43pm

ray245 wrote:I'm talking about personality as in...how are you prone to anger, are you lazy, how willingly are you to listen to others and etc. Well...mainly other's main impression on a person rather than his minor habits and etc.

If that's the definition that you're working off with, its probably more likely to be environmental factors. Genetic factors will only contribute so much before environmental factors begin to dominate, given time.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2007-10-16 06:06pm

ray245 wrote:I know both are important...but I'm asking which one has a stronger influence or is a stronger factor.

Geneticists and behavior psychologists no longer consider this question to be applicable on an individual level. It may be a situation best summed up by saying that genes have a stronger influence in some people, and environment has a stronger influence in some others. Heritibility among populations can change when environments change. In any case, the two factors are clearly intertwined and can't be separated.

I remember a professor who used an analogy that had to do with baking a cake. Each cake is made from flour, water, eggs, water, etc. It doesn't make sense to ask whether the finished cake is "caused" by the flour, or "caused" by the water. They're all necessary ingredients, and we really can't logically disentagle them to see which is more important.

Nathaniel · Post by **Nathaniel** » 2007-10-16 06:53pm

This question's kinda pointless. Of course there's no answer on an individual basis, and it would be just about impossible to have the same standard for everybody on earth. If somebody is heavly abused or indoctrinated as a child then that's probably going to have a greater effect on them than genetics. If, on the other hand, someone has genetic brain defects then genes are going to be more important. The answer will vary massively based upon the culture, economics, and geography of their situation. Unless you want to take the world average, in which case nobody has a clue anyway.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2007-10-17 02:57am

I tend to think of it like this.

Genetics forms the system by which environmental stimuli are processed. Different people with different genetic makeups will respond to different social forces differently. For example, I am probably genetically predisposed to be intellectually aggressive and physically submissive. This shapes a LOT of the ways in which I interact with people, form social connections, and self-identify.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2007-10-17 09:19am

A better question would be, how much does one person's metabolism effect their behaviour-learning abilities and neurological tendencies.