In Brief
- Scientists are identifying specific genes that contribute to human personality traits. For instance, they have discovered genetic variants that may influence anxiety, curiosity, attention deficits and impulsive violence.
- The roots of anxiety and emotional resilience reside partly in a gene that affects brain levels of serotonin, a chemical messenger that regulates sleep, thought and mood, among other functions. This gene is now thought to influence the arousal of the amygdala, a brain region that helps to process emotions such as fear.
- This “anxiety gene” can also increase a person’s susceptibility to depression—but only in the aftermath of adverse experiences, illustrating the importance of gene-environment interactions in shaping mood and personality.
You are diagnosed with a crippling illness. You lose your job. Someone close to you suddenly dies. Some people recover rapidly from life’s calamities and disappointments, whereas others are devastated by minor setbacks, becoming depressed and even suicidal.
The roots of such emotional differences have fascinated psychologists and nonspecialists alike. Environmental factors, such as a person’s upbringing, exert a tremendous influence on his or her resilience in the face of misfortune or failure. But as biologists (and parents) have long suspected, genes lay much of the groundwork for individual personality traits. Studies that compare the traits of identical twins, who have all the same genes, with those of fraternal twins, who share just half their DNA, suggest that genes account for 40 to 60 percent of the individual variation in anxiety levels and susceptibility to depression.
This article was originally published with the title The Character Code.
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5 Comments
Add CommentThe effects that genes & environment have on individual development are inseparable!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe inseparable can never be separated. If you study individuals with identical genes under different environment, all you obtain are the effects of the different environment, inseparably from the effects of the specific genes involved. If you study individuals with different genes under identical environments, all you obtain are the effects of the different genes, inseparably from the effects of the specific environments involved. In neither case have you separated the effects of genes from the effects of the environment!
Assigning a specific percentage to the effects of genes, and the rest to effects of the environment, in the development of any individual trait, (behavioral, or otherwise), is, therefore, a fallacy, due to misguided scientists who delude themselves into believing they have achieved the impossible.
LA MIA PASSIONE PER LA FOTOGRAFIA
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscommento a Inge Muller
Il cinismo dei nazi è raccapricciante, i timpani, le bombe.
Lo sapeva da ragazzo che doveva parlare come un adulto
per sembrare in un tono mai detto allepoca della fantasia,
del realismo. Il tempo infinitesimale di una scintilla,
sofferenza infinita e assurda. Una volta che non aveva il biasimo
di sussistere a un flash, è stato un viaggio fino a Joe Pesci
che faceva lattore di un grande fotoreporter, si quellamico
di Martin Scorzese & Co., ma non è ancora finita, uno che finalmente
è morto per salvare una della CIA. X-file. Non induce a scegliere
unaltra identità , da questo divergente, non una variazione
della intimità , ma almeno ansia, dellultimo respiro. Film dopo
film, sono ancora io: Nei suoi confronti il mio lido è di una
pesantezza unica, si dissipa il passato di una identità terracquea,
non vorrei faticare a sparire, delocalizzato a dellinutile visualizzare,
cosa cè di diverso in noi quando siamo a un esaurimento del tempo.
Apro la vetrina degli altri io in me
tra le nuvole.
Actually I was thinking like if we try so much hard to stop global warming, but we have to think outside of conventional ways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists have found some volcanoes under the surface of that Ice-sheet.
Can't be that the reason of breaking of the big ice glaciers?
A little bit spiritual question:
Why destiny placed that Ozone whole over there? Why not on any of the major city of global world.
I am not saying that all the precautions which are being taken for Global Warming is false. But this is just the mind over matter of mine which forces me to think out side of conventional way.
Even Science has found some strange creatures on that Antarctica. I was shocked to notice a UFO on the surface of Mars.
Anyways I will say that
"Think out side of the conventional ways, and destiny will give you its fruits"
Warm regards
Hardik K Shah
Life is journey my friends. Whatever you observe, around the world, it's not like that it always true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am strongly against of such negative mindsets.
Even if you people put an overall look up on the history of earth & space than you will find the tremendous changes which has changed the laws of physics.
I believe in omens, which destiny give me as a sign of my Fall downs, Ups & awareness.
So in short I believe that we need to expand the approach on broader perspective.
again saying
"Take a look within yourself for Absolution"
-poets of the fall, Locking up the SUN.
Music For Relief
:)
Burn ur skin in front of The Sun & fade to black, when you think that you have done something wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The Sun Will Set For You..."
- LinKiN parK
Music For Relief
:)