Wen | Ark
The first domestic martial arts cartoon is being broadcast, and some people think that the film is "low-level in content, full of violence, eroticism, dirty mouth, intimidation, threats", and children watch it for a long time, "will have a very serious adverse impact", so they requested that the film be stopped. But a children's literature writer known as the "King of Fairy Tales" was very dismissive of this, telling reporters: "I think how a child is, basically genetically determined." I don't know how much the acquired environment affects the child, but what the parents are, and what a child should basically be. ”
If it were not for the reporter's misrepresentation, this comment of the "Fairy Tale King" would be contradictory. Since he didn't know how much the environment affected him, how could he assert that a child's personality was largely genetically determined?
The view of the "fairy tale king" belongs to the so-called genetic determinism. Whether a person's personality is basically innately determined or whether it is influenced by the environment or after the influence of the environment was once a matter of endless debate. Genetic determinism has always been considered reactionary and conservative, while environmental determinism has been considered progressive and enlightened. Although the debate is fierce, it has previously lacked rigorous and objective scientific research, either out of social prejudice or out of good intentions. In the past two decades, there have been more reliable scientific studies that can draw conclusions about the influence of genes and the environment on human personality.
Genetically, to study the relationship between genes and the environment, a simple experiment can be designed: individuals with the same genome (so-called clones) can be controlled to grow in different environments and compare their results. Identical twins have the same genome and are good experimental material, but we can't take people to do this kind of control experiment, we can only conduct surveys and statistics.
There are two ways to do this. One is to compare the similarities and differences between identical twins and heterozygotic twins. Identical twins are developed by the division of the same fertilized egg, their genomes are the same, and the genetic similarity reaches 100%. Heterozygotic twins are two (or more) eggs developed separately from different fertilized eggs produced by fertilization by two (or more) sperm, and although they are located in the same uterus at the same time, their genetic similarity is the same as that of two children born by the same parents at different times, with an average of 50%. If a certain behavioral trait is not more similar to that of a co-egg twin than an allogotic twin, then we can consider the heritability of the trait to be weak. Conversely, if a co-identical twin has a higher degree of similarity in certain behavioral traits than an allogotic twin, then it is likely to be genetically influenced.
Another approach is to compare identical twins who are raised in different families shortly after birth and identical twins who are raised in the same family. This approach is based on the belief that twins raised in different families have different growth environments, so their similarity can be considered to be due to the same genes. This basis is not entirely reliable, since the twins have been in the same environment (the mother's womb) for at least nine months before they are raised separately, and being raised in different families does not mean that they grow in completely different environments, in which it is entirely possible that they have very similar environmental factors.
Regardless of which method is used, it is not only possible to compare individual cases, but to investigate and count a large number of twins. In the world, there have been several such surveys, the largest of which was led by researchers at the University of Minnesota in the United States, who studied more than 8,000 pairs of identical twins and heterozygotic twins, including more than 130 pairs of identical twins who grew up in different families. The reason they were able to find so many identical twins who were raised separately was due to a tragic period in American history: the Great Depression of the 1930s and 1940s forced many poor families to separate their newborn twins and raise them. It is likely that such research opportunities will be difficult in the future.
The researchers conducted in-depth and specific interviews with the twins to understand their living environment, their views on social, religious, and philosophical issues, and to use a series of psychological tests to determine their professional interests, thinking ability, and personality tendencies. The results showed that the personality similarity of identical twins was significantly greater than that of heterozygotic twins. The Minnesota University study found that the correlation between identical twins growing up together averaged 0.46 (0 means that two people have no similarities, 1 means that two people are exactly the same), and the number for identical twins who grow up separately is 0.45. This indicates that the degree of relevance to the personality of the egg twins has nothing to do with whether they grew up in the same or different environments. The personality correlation of the heterozygotic twins that grow up separately averages 0.26, which is about half that of the identical twins, which is consistent with their genetic similarity to half of the identical twins. Correlations obtained from identical twins and allotopic twins can be used to calculate the correlation between genetic differences and personality differences. On average, about 50% of personality differences are due to genetic differences, or genetic factors account for about half of the influence of personality. Geneticists call this number hereditary rate. If the trait difference is entirely caused by genetic differences, the heritability rate is 1, and if the trait difference has nothing to do with the genetic difference, the heritability rate is 0. As a result of other similar studies, the resulting personality heritability rate is generally between 0.2-0.5.
It can be seen that both genetic determinism and environmental determinism are wrong, and the influence of genetic factors and environmental factors on personality is about equally important. The greater the genetic differences between two people, the more different the environment, and the greater the personality differences. While the personality similarity between the two people is mainly caused by similar genetic factors, the influence of the environment is small. But we must remember that genetic and environmental factors are actually inseparable, but are mixed and interact, and in this sense, it is impossible to distinguish how many factors affecting personality belong to genetic influences and how many belong to environmental influences. Simply put, genetics, the environment, and often overlooked random factors all have important influences on human nature.
Darwin once profoundly pointed out that those who stubbornly cling to genetic determinism and believe that everything is predestined are in fact shirking their social responsibility: "If the misery of the poor is not caused by the laws of nature but by our system, then our sins will be great." The Fairy Tale King's own fairy tale works have also been criticized for being unsuitable for children and will have a negative impact on children's growth. This may explain why he asserts that children's personality is largely genetically determined, knowing that he does not understand the magnitude of the acquired environment. Whether violent cartoons and alternative fairy tales will have a negative impact on children can certainly be discussed, but it should not be denied that children's growth will be affected by adverse environments. Choreographers and writers should still have a little more sense of social responsibility when selling their works to children.
2007.2.28 (Economic Observer, March 5, 2007)