ARE YOU A “NATURAL”? In this study, Phycologists are studying the ongoing question of “who are you”, and what makes you, “you”. In the 20th century phycology was dominated by a theory of human nature called Behaviorism. This theory states that human behavior is controlled by environmental factors, such as the different events that go on in different people’s life’s and shape them to who they are now. Today’s theory people believe that experience is what makes you who you are. People dislike theory’s that tell them why they are they way they are because they believe that in life you have a choice to do what you want, but everyone gets certain character traits from their family. Genes are passed down to you from your parents, you can’t see them, and you don’t even know where they are, but they are there. Psychologist like the author of this article Thomas Bouchard,
David Lykken, and their team are researching how much do
your genes influence your personal qualities, and “Are you a Natural”? THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS One way in approaching this is to get a set of twins and separate them at birth and see if there genetics stay the say even though they are raised by totally different families. This way they can see if gens really do shape you as a human or if your surrounding environment does. Thomas and David didn’t need to do this because across the world there are twins that were separated at birth and don’t even know they had a twin. PROCEDURES Once these different twins were found Thomas and David began running test in their one-week time frame. They ran intelligence test, different hands on skill test, personality trait scales, etc. FINDINGS Thomas and David found out from their studies that twins that were raised together were very similar and twins that had be separated were also strikingly similar as well in all aspects of the
test. Part of the tests was an IQ test and they found that about 70% of the score was more of a genetic pass down, and 30% was on the twin’s different environments. Thomas and David realized that people’s environments have a less effect on personality than passed down genetics. David and Thomas suggested that it is not the environment that’s molds people’s characteristics, it is their different genetics that shape their environment. Thomas concludes that about 40% of the variability in personality, and 50% of variation in intelligence appears to be genetically based. RECENT APPLICTIONS There have been more recent studies on Thomas, and David’s theory’s and most of them seem to agree. They have even found out that identical twins separated seem to even die around the same time! Even marriage as well they seem to do things in sink even if they weren’t together.