Are psychological/ personality traits genetic?

Sure, some of them are. The best way to think of genes and behavior is that genes tend to decide how easy or hard it is for you to acquire a trait, but they don’t really predetermine traits. That stuff is shaped by your environment, your experiences, your decisions, etc.

If you’re interested in this stuff, google behavioral genetics.

Some psychological disorders can run in a family so i’d have to say the answer can be yes though I think most personalty traits are learned behaviors.

no way to test that ever
unless you do that unethical experiment where you take kids away from their parents and put them in a box and do various nurture things and test em

According to Malcolm Gladwell’s latest (Outliers), cultural legacies exert an influence. E.g. the tendency for southern males to escalate conflict.

@nikipedia Thanks. I will.

@kevbo but again how do we know that’s genetic and not socialized?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir People really do that? What the hell

@Facade
oh no they don’t
i mean at least i don’t think so
i was just giving an example of how to find out

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: These things are usually tested in twin studies. If two identical twins (100% identical DNA) are more likely to share the trait than non-identical twins (50% shared DNA), scientists infer that some of that difference is due to DNA.

Also, rarely, twins are given up for adoption and reared apart. These make very useful research subjects.

It could be either or both. I don’t know.

@nikipedia
no I know
but even with twins, there may be variation
for example the father can raise one and the mother the other one
in terms of who tag teams them

Some genetic traits have extremely high heritability. It’s actually quite testable. As has been mentioned, twin studies are extremely useful, expecially comparisons between identical twins and fraternal twins. We can be as certain about the heritability of behavior as we can the heritability of any other trait; we can control for as many of the variables as possible and look at the data. I’m not sure why anyone would expect human behavior to be less heritable than anything else, especially given the readiness with which we accept the heritability of behavior in other species, such as dogs.

That’s an absolute yes – and no – question. Many expressions of psychological/personality traits are guided by genes, but it’s not an exact one to one correlation. There are so many other factors involved that scientists will be puzzling it out for a long time to come.

I feel pretty certain that psychological and personality traits are genetic. There are things that I don’t show or teach to my kids, and yet, they act just like me (usually in the ways I really wish they wouldn’t). Some mental disorders are passed on through genes. I have one of them. There are people on both my mother’s side and my father’s side that have the same thing.

I’ve seen how brain chemistry can change your mood and feelings. Worse, I’ve experienced it actually changing the thoughts I think. If genes help determine how your brain chemistry works, and if brain chemisty can determine mood and feelings and responses, then it is certainly also affecting personality.

My ex-husband and I split before our son turned 5; for the next year, there was limited contact between the two, and the last time my son saw his father alive was before he turned 6. My son is about to turn 18, and I still see facial expressions, gestures, and even phrases that are eerily like his dad… it has made me totally rethink the nature vz. nurture debate.

My nephews pictures and the pictures of my brothers as small boys are eerily similar. Some to the point that you can’t tell them apart if you didn’t know which was which.

I’ve heard that certain genetic traits skip a generation, as in you have more in common with your grandparents than your parents. I have nothing to back it up, except that my grandfather on my Mom’s side had a tall brother, and my brothers and I are all tall (over six foot), but our Dad was only five foot eight. Mom is even shorter. There are no tall people on my Dad’s side of the family. My grandfather’s brother was pretty intelligent, but susceptible to various mental ailments, including the one that put him in a mental institution for almost 60 years. Sort of a ‘Sling Blade’ effect, except my great Uncle Lawrence never actually killed anyone. He was a musical savant, and he also (according to the family legends) taught cats to walk tight ropes. This is of course all anecdotal evidence and accounts for nothing in the way of proof. I’m too lazy to do any real research on the whole thing.

Who knows, I think we all get something from our genetic heritage. That’s where my MPB and blue eyes come from.

@evelyns_pet_zebra MPB?

@Facade

It usually stands for “male pattern baldness.”

Some, some aren’t.

@crisw I knew that lol

I have an MPV – it’s a Mazda.

@Zen what about MPG on that MPV?

Does having MPB while driving in an MPV convertible affect your overall MPG? You knew someone was going to go there, might as well be me.

EPZ FTW!

@elijahsuicide I get pretty good mpg on the mpv, but my mpb is bothering me significantly. Hear-o:
Luckily, my s/o is not so bother-o about it-o
So I laugh and make light of my
follically-challenged plight
And continue to sunbathe til I glow,

No, they come from the neighbor.

I think that some of my psychological issues (such as chemical imbalances) are genetic. I also believe that some issues are learned from my parents in my upbringing.

There is a fine line between the nature and the nurture when you talk about personality traits and psychology, so it’s not always easy to tell where genetics stop and learned behavior begins.

Nature or nurture? Both. In this case I’d say 50% each.

I think they can be. The rest of the time people probably just need a hug. Does anybody want a hung?

@ShauneP82 I’ll take a hug, buddy.

@ShauneP82 – Still time to correct the Freudian, buddy. (Hung – hug)

@Zen (Hugggggggggg…) Man I feel a lot better.

You wrote, lol: I think they can be. The rest of the time people probably just need a hug. Does anybody want a hung?

The answer to your question is “Yes, yes and yes!”. You’re not going to be able to easily identify WHICH behaviors came in what way, however.

Some of the behaviors you see in yourself that are similar to behaviors your parents exhibit is mere COINCIDENCE and probably just you looking for these similarities.

Other behaviors are LEARNED from them. If your father beat your mother, you might be violent to your spouse as well.

And then there are behaviors that are genetic and some behaviors where the TENDENCY to have this behavior is genetic. I play several instruments by ear. So does my daughter. We KNOW drug addicted mothers give birth to addicted babies.

Good question.

@Mr_M Good answer for real.

Where personality is concerned, I think genes are the foundation and certain tendencies are there, but we shouldn’t underestimate just how much environment goes into shaping a person. You can have a pair of identical twins raised under the same roof, under what would seem to be the same conditions, that have all sorts of differences.

Ordinarily, given their 100% genetic match, this wouldn’t make sense. You would expect them to be carbon copies of each other. The difference lies in environment, not the genes. Great example, the gene for Darwin’s tubercle runs in my family (I have one on my left ear). I have identical twin cousins, one of whom had a tubercle on his ear and, interestingly, the other twin didn’t. It was how I used to tell them apart, until he had the thing removed. :)

It could be that one twin gets more nutrients in the womb than the other, or one goes to summer camp and the other doesn’t, or they have different tastes and eat different things. Environment is everything you’ve experienced, from the animate to the inanimate. This is powerful in shaping who we are, both physically and mentally.

Nature Vs. Nurture. This question has been argued for years. It is probably a balance of both. My son inherited his father ‘s bi-polar. He also has a different set of coping tools that will hopefully insure that the personality effects of his mental illness will not be terminal like they were for his father.
When asking your question it is almost like trying to tell the difference (in my son) between the personality and the illness. It’s like there are two very similar strands of spaghetti all in one bowl and covered with sauce. Trying to determine which strand is the individual personality and which strand is the illness can be a daunting task.

Doesn’t everything (both nature and nurture) affect the psychological make up of a person? Some people are born with higher susceptability to chemical dependency, so they are more likely to develop a drug addiction. Some people are exposed to drug use day to day until it becomes a social norm, so they are more likely to develop a drug addiction. And you can do that with just about every behavioral trait imaginable…

This is over-debated. I want to hear more about Zen’s Mazda.

personality traits and psychological disorders are determined by both nature and nurture. it’s not 100% either.

you can definitely inherit aspects of your parents’ traits, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s kids are going to be personality doubles of mommy and daddy.

Yes.

@Kraken x2. I.e., yes, yes.

Go Bucs.