Genetic factors (continued)
The other twin answered in quite a different way. He said,
"The reason is quite simple. I'm reacting to my mother, who was an absolute slob."
As you can see quite obviously, the twins' obsession with neatness is not caused by their mothers. The performance of their mothers had little to do with their need for cleanliness. It is more likely that it is caused by genetic factors.
When people think of the gene's role in the formation of a person, they usually put more emphasis on physical appearance. On the other hand, we tend to see personalities of individuals as the result of experience - people lead different lives, have different sufferings, experience different things, and therefore each person has a different personality. However, today we can understand more and more about how genes have a force too. Research in behavioral genetics has supported the idea that personality is partly inherited. Psychologists have summarized the results of twin studies that focused on the Big Five personality traits. Results have shown that identical twins resemble each other in personality than fraternal twins. This suggests that personality is partly inherited.
Infants, just a few weeks old, display differences between each other on how active they are, how responsive they are to change, and how irritable they are. Some babies cry constantly. Others seem to be happy and stay fairly quiet. Each infant has different mood-related personality characteristics, which are called temperaments. Because differences in temperaments in infants can be observed in such an early stage, the traditional view that an infant's behavior is formed by the environment the infant is in, during its early stages, is questionable. Research has shown that infants are born with temperamental differences.
As seen from the above, genetic factors play a major part in the formation of personality, but not every personality characteristic is originated from genetic makeup. We will look at how genetic factors affect environmental factors and their correlation in personality development later in this section.
