Genetics vs. Environment: Which Affects Us Most
How much of our personality traits, temperament, talents, health conditions, mental illness, and intelligence are controlled by our genes and how much by our environment? Which trumps in parenting: Nature vs. Nurture? What relevance does this have to us as parents? Host Dawn Davenport interviewed Dr. Matt McGue, a behavioral and quantitative geneticist and director of the Minnesota Twin Study; and Dr. Kerry Jang, a Professor with the UBC Department of Psychiatry.
Hit the Highlights
- The different types of twin research designed to tease out the relative influences of genetics and environment
- What does research say about the influence of nature vs nuture on how children turn out
- The impact of genetics and environment on intelligence, personality and temperment
- The heritability of different types of mental illness, including bipolar, depression, schizophrenia, aggression, and alcoholism
- Epigenetics as it relates to donor egg, donor sperm or embryo donation (embryo adoption)
For more information from this show and a discussion of this topic, check out Dawn’s blog on the show: Genetics vs. Environment: Which Affects Us Most. Please join the discussion or leave your thoughts about the show in the comments on the blog.
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