The nature versus nurture debate was one that I faced when writing What’s Stopping You? Do our genes dictate our personality traits, or is it conditioning? Having said this I was a reluctant participant, at first adopting the classic fence-sitting position of stating that it is usually a bit of both. Such reluctance is understandable. I learnt from my first book that book publishing is more about winning friends than creating enemies, especially as this debate gets political – for instance the existence of a gay gene, or otherwise, can cause some pretty heated exchanges.
Yet one book forced me off the fence – not on the existence or otherwise of a gay gene I hasten to add but on the fact it is early life experiences that shape our personality and, importantly for the subject of the book, our fears and phobias. And that includes fear of failure, the core concern in What’s Stopping You?
That book was They F*** You Up (2002) by Oliver James, subtitled: how to survive family life. It is James’s contention that our early-life interactions with parents and siblings that has the overwhelming say when it comes to deciding who we are and how we evaluate and respond to the external influences that come our way.
“Yes genes do establish a basic repertoire of traits in nearly all humans,” says James, “but the subtle differences between us in their expression are largely determined by our upbringing.”
One piece of evidence he sets out for this is the Human Genome Project, which aimed at mapping our genes in the expectation humans would have at least 100,000 different genes. Instead they found just 30-40,000 – only twice the number of the common fruit fly. This led a leader of the project, Craig Venter to conclude that genes cannot play more than a minor role in determining the differences between us.
Indeed, James is quite emphatic about this, stating that studies have shown that hardly any psychological differences are predetermined. In his book James focuses on identical twins – pairings that have exactly the same genes so any psychological differences between them must have environmental origins.
James interviews two identical twins from popular culture – Gayle and Gillian Blakeney, stars of the day-time soap Neighbours. To underline their physical similarities, James relays that the two had just been to the opticians to discover that their eye-sight had deteriorated by the same degree over the same period and, he stated, that during the interview he continually mixed them up despite the fact they were dressed very differently.
Psychologically, however, James claims they were chalk and cheese. Gillian was assertive and aggressive – Tomboyish as a child with a shorter fuse and the occasional petulant outburst. She was treated as the baby of the family (in fact was nine minutes the younger), and described herself as a “daddy’s girl” although borrowed many mannerisms from her mother. Yet she was the mentally stronger of the two – confident and manipulative – describing her sibling relationship as a “marriage” in which she played the masculine role.
Meanwhile, Gayle was the opposite. She was less assertive and more helpful as a child – keen to win her parent’s approval. She was the older sister and acted as such: listening, trusting, giving, more reflective. She was shy with men and preferred “brainy types” while her sister plumped for more stereo-typical masculinity.
James cites that a key aspect in their differences was the way in which both were treated by their parents. The mother “was always on Gillian’s side”, excusing her bad behaviour while Gayle struggled to win parental approval. Of course, as James states, this could still be genetic. If we are lovable, we attract more love, although if we are born with the same genes as our twin, surely we would be equally lovable – or not?
Yet shared genes do not mean we are born the same person. For instance, twins may have very different experiences in the womb, winning or losing the struggle for nutrients, space and comfort or perhaps being inadvertently kicked by the other one. Certainly, traumas can begin in the womb – even generating feelings of post-traumatic stress disorder. For instance, Yale University’s Dennis Charney states that significant traumas can occur in the womb (perhaps passed through the mother) – making us unaware of the events that could shape our personalities and fears.
My own anecdotes support this (although I’m aware that it’s always possible to find anecdotal evidence to support a prejudice). I remember spending a lovely summer holiday in the home of an artist who had deep and sometimes disturbing melancholic tendencies that his sister attributed, at least in part, to the death of a sibling while their mother was pregnant with her brother. The mother’s sense of loss and sadness was transferred to the foetus – at least that was his sister’s conclusion.
And even in my own family I can see a psychological difference between my two boys that I sometimes wonder about. The eldest was over two weeks late and was an incredibly relaxed baby – rarely crying, even when receiving injections. Due to obstetric cholestasis my youngest was born nearly a month before term by emergency Caesarean – a process he certainly didn’t enjoy. He remains more anxious and sensitive than his brother and less able to take the world as it comes.
Of course, my sample size is insignificant, but it is interesting nonetheless. And it does bring us to one significant conclusion. That despite the title of his book, nor the content of mine, neither Oliver James or What’s Stopping You? are pointing fingers for mental conditions such as fear of failure. While convinced that environmental factors played by far the most significant part, the environment starts in the womb and could have any number of factors. It is a major stretch from here to an “I blame the parents” position.
And genes are clearly apparent in some conditions. Autism, dyslexia, depression are most certainly genes-related, although may perhaps be exacerbated by self-perpetuating environments that roll down the generations. Having said this, James claims that “science now accepts” that, in most psychological fashioning, genes play only a minor role – a conclusion I’m also prepared to (mostly) accept as the basis for analysis within What’s Stopping You? - although the qualification in parenthesis suggests that I’m still more comfortable with at least one hand on the fence.
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