Do you think non-physical traits are genetic?

[Nestof3]

Traits like giftedness, intelligence, aptitude, personality?

[Mrs Mungo]

Yes, absolutely.

[Night Elf]

Yes, I do. You know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. :)

[Mandamom]

Yes. Sometimes you can tell it is directly from parents otherwise it might have skipped a generation and be from further up the tree.

Edited August 12, 2012 by Mandamom
clarification

[radiobrain]

Yes.

[Reeciecup]

Yes absolutely. I have personal proof of that because I gave up a child for adoption and the met her again 20 years later. I married her father and we have 3 other children. She is much more like people in my family, than in her adoptive family.

[The girl next door]

Yes, without a doubt. My mother is more and more like my grandmother as she ages.... and I'm becoming more like her!;)

[laundrycrisis]

Yes, absolutely. I have a brother who in so many ways seems like a clone of our uncle. Same laugh, same sense of humor, same facial expressions, voice inflection, etc. And they think alike too. Hanging around the two of them together is hilarious ! It is amazing how alike they are.

[Parrothead]

Oh, yes. Absolutely.

[stripe]

I am always fascinated by people with very similar voices! Includi intonation and how they laugh.

[Mommyfaithe]

Traits like giftedness, intelligence, aptitude, personality?

 

Yes....to a point.

I think some is nature and some is nurture.

[DianeW88]

Yes, definitely. I don't have any studies to reference off the top of my head, but I know it's been proven. How's that for authoritative? :lol:

[Laura Corin]

Yes.

 

Laura

[Word Nerd]

Yes.

[celticmom]

Yes.

[elegantlion]

Yes, I see dh and me in ds. Fortunately, he got most of the good, some of which has nothing to do with nuture, he was simply born that way.

[Crimson Wife]

Yes, there have been a lot of twin and adoption studies that found these things are largely (around 70-80%) genetic. The most interesting studies are the ones where identical twins have been raised apart and how similar they are.

[kb44]

Yes!

[Pamela H in Texas]

At least partially....a big part.

 

Talk to a therapist who works only with adopted kids (our therapist has plenty of kids adopted as infants also). It seems obvious as all get out. Kinda makes me wonder and worry though.

 

Supposedly, my three's biological parents are low-average and borderline in intelligence. I really don't believe that. I think that their environment, educations, life experiences, chemical use, etc makes them appear so, but they gave birth to three very gifted children (despite issues due to alcohol use in pregnancy). That came from somewhere. And the three were quite delayed due to environment and experience. IMO, how the kids are doing now shows that environment can greatly impact the demonstration of personality, intelligence, etc. But I still think those things are "in there somewhere," probably even with their bioparents who are in their late 20s.

[Mandylubug]

absolutely!

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Without a doubt YES!

[kalanamak]

Yes, my son even uses little phrases my dad used, and he died when kiddo was 3, and only met a few times. They have the same photographic memory for tunes as well.

Edited August 12, 2012 by kalanamak

[catz]

Absolutely.

[Harriet Vane]

Yes, absolutely.

[linders]

Definitely. I can see myself in my DC, for better and worse:glare:.

[SKL]

Yes, but opportunity matters a ton as well.

[Element]

Absolutely! It's such a mixed bag though. Even if both parents are very musical, you are not guaranteed to have musical kids. You might have average to high-average parents and a PG kiddo.

 

I think temperament is probably the least genetic, or at least the easiest to change/overcome. My dh truly has adjusted his temperament in the past decade, moving away from his family's tradition of "immediate reaction & blowing up" to being the calmest person in the room. I don't think it's a matter of maturity, either, because elders in his family never even matured in this manner. IOW, I don't think you can *ungift* :tongue_smilie: a gifted kid, but I do think you can help an impulsive kid overcome his/her impulsiveness even if everyone else in the family has a daredevil streak.

[I talk to the trees]

Without a doubt. A couple of months ago, I picked up a grocery list that I was sure dh had written. Turned out that dd was the author. I taught her to print, and I taught her cursive, yet her handwriting is so much like her father's that I cannot tell them apart.

[Jenny in Florida]

Intelligence/giftedness, absolutely. There's lots of research to back up that connection.

 

I've heard of (but not read in depth) studies about identical twins raised apart that seem to find lots of similarities in personality, too. You'll find examples of people who didn't even know they had a twin who meet in adulthood and discover they are in the same career, named their children similar or identical names, etc.

 

I don't think genetics are the only factor, but they are certainly one important factor.

[nono]

Both bio and environmental. The four of us are from four different birth countries. While we aren't "matchy-matchy" neither was my family which was all biological. But this family of no bio relations feesl so integrated, with many similar strong points...I don't know what to tell you! My dd has my Dad's expressions (he's been dead for 4 years). She picked them up from him, and me. It's so amazing to see my Dad right on my dd's face. I'm sure she's looking like her bio family too, so it's a real blend. Science & math -- big hits among all 4 of us. Is that in our DNA or do we feed on each others' interests in our environment?

 

I guess for me, considering my family of origin, I would never have expected a child "like" me or my dh if we'd gone the bio route, so I expect them to be different, and yet share some traits. Sometimes, it might be coincidence at work, and sometimes maybe it's cultivated. My dd's athletic, as are the rest of us. Did we cultivate that? Maybe! At the same time, she has a stage-presence quality that I suspect is strongly bio-related. Environment had nothing to do with that! :D

[SKL]

I also think that traits come in "clusters" (for lack of a better word). A certain "type" of person may share a list of both physical and non-physical traits. For example, my dd and I are not biologically related, but we are so alike it is uncanny. A short list of scary similarities: posture, astigmatism, taste and ability in art, organization style, muscular strength and stamina, balance, high pain tolerance, insecurity, defensiveness, poor listening skills, morning grouchiness, and more. My other daughter (also adopted) could not be more different from us, but she is a lot like a friend of mine.

[justamouse]

100%.

[SonshineLearner]

Hmmm... weird, because my daughter, though never living with her bio dad... is still much like him. BUT, her morals and her character are not! (Which is a good thing, from my perspective :)) So, I think you instill their character and morals much more than their traits.

She's for sure, head strong and in your face, like her dad. Hopefully we've pruned her personality a bit, so this will be to her advantage! :)

[justamouse]

Yes, definitely. I don't have any studies to reference off the top of my head, but I know it's been proven. How's that for authoritative? :lol:

 

Nat Geo did a whole article on it this last year. It was an amazing read. So there's your reference, :D.

[nono]

I also think that traits come in "clusters" (for lack of a better word). A certain "type" of person may share a list of both physical and non-physical traits. For example, my dd and I are not biologically related, but we are so alike it is uncanny. A short list of scary similarities: posture, astigmatism, taste and ability in art, organization style, muscular strength and stamina, balance, high pain tolerance, insecurity, defensiveness, poor listening skills, morning grouchiness, and more. My other daughter (also adopted) could not be more different from us, but she is a lot like a friend of mine.

 

That's an interesting idea! I remember my Dad, when he was still alive, often sitting in the morning, giving me this bemused look while my dd and I woke up together. One day, I finally said, "Dad, what is it? You see me and dd together, and you get this look on your face. What are you thinking??" He replied something about how it fascinated him how much my dd and I were in sync, when al lhe could remember is how out of sync my bio Mom and I were! It blew his mind! LOL :D

[nono]

Nat Geo did a whole article on it this last year. It was an amazing read. So there's your reference, :D.

 

Is that where they do the ranges too? Meaning if, one has a possibility of scoring in an IQ range of 90-110, that's bio. But whether someone ends up at 90 or 110, that's environmental? I kind of think that environment is frosting on the cake, but living my life is shaking that belief a bit. ;)

[Jenny in Florida]

Nat Geo did a whole article on it this last year. It was an amazing read. So there's your reference, :D.

 

Here's a link to an article about the study, although it isn't the full original piece: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079492/National-Geographic-twins-Johanna-Evas-beaming-eyes-painting-beautiful-picture-sisterly-love.html

[SKL]

Is that where they do the ranges too? Meaning if, one has a possibility of scoring in an IQ range of 90-110, that's bio. But whether someone ends up at 90 or 110, that's environmental? I kind of think that environment is frosting on the cake, but living my life is shaking that belief a bit. ;)

 

I am a little iffy on the IQ discussion, because I'm not sure the IQs, particularly of the older generations, are all that accurate. My dd has some vision issues that she probably inherited from her bio mom (based on some things I know about bio family). She has had the luxury of receiving vision services that her bio mom never received. As a result of the vision services, she had the opportunity to be accelerated in school, whereas her bio mom never learned to write her name. Even if they were both born with the exact same wiring, I would guess my dd would test higher than her bio mom in IQ, because testing is always impacted by the individual's experience. (Not to mention nutrition differences.)

[Delirium]

I am always fascinated by people with very similar voices! Includi intonation and how they laugh.

 

Yes! I agree.

 

I think affinities for something can be genetic.

[bettyandbob]

I haven't read the responses on this thread.

 

Research I read years ago (so I do not have citation) showed that full biological siblings typically have IQ's within one standard deviation. That would suggest genetics plays a role.

[Rivka]

The answer to the question "nature or nurture" is virtually always "both."

 

Intelligence has a heritability of .70, which means that about half the variability in intelligence is explained by genetics. (it's the correlation squared, so a heritability of .70 = 49% of the variance explained.) That is a huge correlation in psychology; the strong influence of genes cannot be denied. But it's still only half the variance. The rest includes things like the biological environment (nutrition, etc.), the psychosocial environment, and the interaction between genes and the environment.

 

Temperament is largely of biological origin and heritable. There are differences in things like activity level and reactivity to new experiences that can be observed in a newborn nursery, and those differences are relatively stable. However, again, the heritability correlations are high but not absolute. Again, environment and experiences play a strong role in how biologically determined temperament factors are expressed as child or adult personality.

 

I've seen some interesting things. My husband was adopted, but when his adoptive father was living, people just couldn't get over how similar they seemed. They had the same hand gestures, the same body language, the same vocal patterns, the same mannerisms. He always heard "you look just like your father."

 

On the other hand, his IQ and his interest in education and reading were much higher than those of his adoptive family. And when we met his birth mother, we discovered that he and she were both members of the same tiny religious denomination. There are only about 200K Unitarian-Universalists in America, but Michael and his birth mother both joined them. How weird is that?

[Kathryn]

Yes, definitely.

[Perry]

Yes, of course. Behavioral Genetics

[Rebecca VA]

Yes. I see it all time in my family. My kids have traits from relatives whom they never met. I feel connected by temperament and appearance to my grandmother, whom I only saw occasionally in the summer and who died when I was in high school.

 

It's funny how -- at least in our family -- traits seem to go in "packages." A person who physically resembles a relative seems to get most of that relative's other traits as well.

[OrganicAnn]

Yes. Nature and Nurture. Yes, both.

[MamaT]

Yes....to a point.

I think some is nature and some is nurture.

 

:iagree: There are lots of inherited traits I see in my kids, but I also see me a LOT in my adopted daughters.

[kubiac]

Thanks for the link to the NatGeo article.

 

Interesting quote:

 

Having said that, Reed adds, the latest work in epigenetics promises to take our understanding even further. "What I like to say is that Mother Nature writes some things in pencil and some things in pen," she says. "Things written in pen you can't change. That's DNA. But things written in pencil you can. That's epigenetics. Now that we're actually able to look at the DNA and see where the pencil writings are, it's sort of a whole new world."

[LibraryLover]

:)

Edited August 13, 2012 by LibraryLover

[KidsHappen]

Yes, definitely.

[cin]

I think it can be, but I think the environment in which they are raised can impact them tremendously.

I was in 7 foster homes by the time I was placed at 18 mos. My oldest dd was with 6 caregivers and abused between 6 & 12 mos. (Some abuse might have occurred before then, not sure).

 

Because of our first year, things took place in our brains that make us INCREDIBLY similar. It is flat out SCARY to DH. We both have depression and anxiety, both have executive skills dysfunction, have trouble believing what people say when they compliment us, and have a general 'woe is me' outlook on life.

 

As an aside, we both have high IQs. I don't think that is genetic, but just another odd thing in this whole adoption thing. :blink: