Genetic Influences on Personality

Abstract

This chapter summarises evidence for the genetic transmission of personality characteristics from parents to offspring. This topic might seem like a matter for debate or even controversy, but it isn’t: long before the advent of behaviour genetics as a scientific discipline, farmers used selective breeding to mould the psychological as well as anatomical characteristics of their livestock. For example, sheep are docile and passive farm animals yet the wild sheep from which they are descended are feisty creatures. This change in sheep personality is not the result of education, but instead has been achieved by centuries of selective breeding for docility.