How are personality traits determined and formed?

Psychologists often talk about personality traits and traits, but what are traits and traits and how are they formed? Is it the product of genetics or upbringing and the surrounding environment? If we assume that traits and traits are the result of genetics, our personalities will be formed early in our lives and will be difficult to change later.

But if it is the result of upbringing and the surrounding environment, then the experiences and situations we go through during our lifetime will play a major role in shaping these traits and traits, and this is what gives us the necessary flexibility to change, modify and acquire some new traits.

Determining the main factor between the environment and genetics in the formation of human traits and traits is one of the biggest dilemmas facing behavioral geneticists. Because genes are the basic biological units that transmit characteristics from one generation to another, and each gene is associated with a specific trait, personality is not determined by a specific gene, but by many genes that work together. The problem is not less on the environmental side; The largely unknown influences, called non-individual environmental influences, have the greatest impact on an individual's personality, and are largely unsystematic and random variations.

However, behavioral geneticists tend to believe that traits and traits are a mixture of heredity, nurture, and environment. They rely on a variety of research techniques, especially the results of family studies, twin studies and adoption studies, to identify and distinguish between genetic and environmental influences as much as possible.

The importance of experiences on twins

One of the most important social experiments on which the study of human traits depends are those based on twins who are adopted by different families.

The aim of this study is to search for relatives who share genetic content and differ in place of upbringing. This experiment helps in measuring the power of genes in shaping an individual's traits and traits.

If heredity is the reason for the transmission of traits and traits from biological parents to offspring, then the traits and traits of adopted children must be similar to those of their biological parents and not their adoptive parents. Conversely, if upbringing and the surrounding environment shape an individual's traits and traits, then adopted children's traits and traits should resemble their adoptive parents rather than their biological parents.

One of these experiments is the Minnesota Experiment, through which more than 100 pairs of twins were studied between 1979 and 1990. This group included both identical twins (identical twins that arose from a single egg that split into two eggs after it was fertilized, resulting in more than one fetus) and non-identical twins (different twins that arose from two different fertilized eggs) who arose together or as one. separate. The results revealed that the personalities of identical twins were similar whether they were raised in the same house or in different homes, and this indicates that some aspects of personality are affected by genetics.

But this does not mean that the environment does not play a role in shaping personality. This is not surprising, as studies of twins indicate that identical twins share about 50% of the same traits, while fraternal twins share only about 20%. Thus, we can say that our traits are shaped by heredity and environmental factors that interact with each other in a variety of ways to form our individual personalities.

Upbringing sometimes has a limited role

Another notable experiment was conducted by the American psychologist Peter Neubauer, starting in 1960, on the case of triplets: David Kellman, Bobby Shafran, and Eddie Galland (their different family names due to the affiliation of each of them to the family of their adopters). Where the story began in the year 1980 AD, when Bobby Shafran discovered that he had a brother. The two met, and through conversation it was revealed that they had been adopted, and soon concluded that they were twins. Several months later, David Kellman - their third twin - appeared in the photo. The latter expressed his astonishment at the similarity and compatibility between him and Bobby and Eddie, including the circumstances of the prophet. Eventually they found out that they were triplets who had been put up for adoption after their mother struggled with mental health issues. After they were adopted by different families, they were put under a study by two psychiatrists, Peter Neubauer and Viola Bernard in collaboration with the New York Adoption Agency responsible for adoptions of twins and triplets. The aim of the study was to determine whether the traits are hereditary or acquired. The triplets were separated from each other when they were still babies, for the purpose of study and research. Each of them was placed with a family that differed from the other's family in terms of education and economic level. The study included periodic visits to the twins and conducting specific assessments and tests for them. However, by watching the encounters with the twins, they all agreed that brotherly bonds were formed between them so quickly that it seemed as if they had not separated nor had they been brought up by three different families. However, with the passage of time, differences between the twins began to appear, the most important of which is related to mental health, so the fraternal relationship between them was strained, and the three suffered from mental health problems for years, until one of them, Eddie Galland, committed suicide in 1995.

Confirm the role of the genetic factor

Among the stories that Neubauer has studied is that of twins Paula Bernstein and Alice Shane, who were adopted as infants by different families.

Alice says of how she met her twin sister, that, while bored at work one morning working as a freelance filmmaker in Paris, the thought led her to ask about her biological parents. Her adoptive mother had previously died of cancer when Alice was six years old. So I started searching on the Internet, and the search browser showed several results, including the center that took the procedures for its adoption. She contacted this center, wanting to know any information about her biological parents and the family she came from. Indeed, a year later, she got the reply, and was informed of her original name, and that she was born to a 28-year-old mother. The surprise for her is that she was informed that she is a twin of a sister, and that she is the youngest. Alice was getting excited and determined to get information about her twin sister. Indeed, she was provided with the information and Alice met her sister Paula Bernstein in New York City, where she lives and works as a film journalist and has a daughter named Jesse. These twins share creative inclinations, work in the film industry and journalism, and have common hobbies, although the two sisters did not meet until the age of thirty-five, and did not share the place of upbringing. However, the similarity in traits confirms the existence of a role for the genetic factor.
It is worth noting that Peter Neubauer's experiment differs from other twin studies in that it applies assessments and tests to twins from early childhood. And all of these results that were recorded were without anyone knowing, neither the twins nor the adoptive parents, that they were the subject of this study. This may be good from a scientific point of view, since the results extracted from it add a lot of information on the subject of human traits and traits, but at the same time it is still in violation of scientific ethics that violates the most basic rights of these twins to live with each other as brothers. Surprisingly, the results were kept and not published until this moment. Where the records of the Neubauer experiment at Yale University in America were closed until 2065 AD.

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