A recent study suggests “the continuity of personality’s association with directly observed behavior” (C.S. Nave et al., On the Contextual Independence of Personality: Teachers’ Assessments Predict Directly Observed Behavior After Four Decades, “Social Psychological and Personality Science”, 2010, http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/07/06/1948550610370717.abstract). In other words, certain behaviors and certain personality traits are basically hereditary and are not subject to environmental, social, and cultural influences. For example, “children rated by their teachers as ‘verbally fluent’ (defined as unrestrained talkativeness) showed dominant and socially adept behavior as middle-aged adults. Early ‘adaptability’ was associated with cheerful and intellectually curious behavior, early ‘impulsivity’ was associated with later talkativeness and loud speech, and early-rated tendencies to ‘self-minimize’ were related to adult expressions of insecurity and humility”.
This is an additional confirmation of the genetic components of personalities and of individual differences. This field of study is growing increasingly solid and is supported by reams of data. Nevertheless, even if we assume that all the control variables were taken into account, this study’s conclusion can still only remain applicable at the population level; that is, the presumed genetic pre-determination can explain (a great) part of the variability observed in the sample, or in the totality of the universe under consideration.
Unlike chemistry or physics, biology cannot count on rigorous laws that can explain all phenomena without exception. Nevertheless, biological studies whose results have a probability value at the individual level can have drastically different applications. For example, there a major difference between what happens in medicine and what happens in behavioural genetics (as in this case). If aspirin benefits 90% of flu patients, it can be prescribed to all flu patients, even though we know about 10% will not receive any benefits. The latter can then be treated with other drugs.
Consider a study (C.M. Ciarleglio et. al., Perinatal photoperiod imprints the circadian clock, “Nature Neuroscience”, 2010, http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v14/n1/full/nn.2699.html) that claims that the season during which one is born influences the circadian clock and has weak effects on mood and propensity towards depression or schizophrenia. How should it be interpreted at the individual level? Should each individual be analyzed separately, or can general inferences be drawn, almost as if in a horoscope (indeed, a major Italian newspaper featured the following title: “Scientists admit that birth date influences character”). However, it is easy to find individuals born on the same date, but with drastically different personalities (this was Augustine’s objection to belief in horoscopes). The same seems to hold true for studies on behavioral characteristics that are generally hereditary. The far-from-trite warning that emerges out of this is that there is a difference in study types, not in and of themselves, but in terms of their interpretations and/or applications.
Indeed, each one of us is familiar with cases in which a child or youth with a certain personality eventually developed quite different, if not opposite, character traits or attitudes. The risk of a hurried reading of studies such as the ones cited above lies not so much in its objective conclusions, but in the possible development of a “fatalist” mentality. With this concept we refer to the fact than one may think it impossible to change their – or someone else’s – personality, whether for better or worse. On the basis of a superficial scientific culture stoked by the uncritical diffusion of results such as those cited above, one might conclude that education, family, society, and institutions matter little against genes; that we are “condemned” to be what we are since childhood. This also brings with it the risk of a certain complacency towards oneself and a superficial “acceptance of one’s shortcomings”, against which nothing can be done anyway. Science says so. The role of culture, the ethics of self-improvement and improving others (in a non-coercive way, it goes without saying, but through leading by example and encouragement) would gradually lose importance and credibility.
Behavior of a child is different from the other depending on a lot of factors. This can be attributed to the society the child belongs and to the family he grows up with.
Posted by: Brad Fallon | 01/15/2011 at 09:26 AM