Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–5Cite as

Nature-Nurture Debate

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

Synonyms

Epigenome, Gene by environment, Intelligence, Molecular genetics, Nature, Nurture, Personality

Introduction

Among the earliest testimonials of human civilization is a deep intuition that some aspects of human behavior originate in our genetic makeup, while others feel like the result of upbringing or exercise. A central question posed by both ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and modern researchers in the twenty-first century deals with the impact of nature and nurture on human characteristics such as personality or intelligence. While Aristotle questioned how resemblances between parents and their offspring can be explained (Henry 2006), Sir Francis Galton (1869) as one of the first scientists already dealt in his famous work Hereditary Genius with the genetics of intelligence.

The nature versus nurture debaterepresents one of the oldest issues in the research of human behavior dealing with the question whether inherited traits or life experiences (e.g., upbringing)...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Arslan, R. C., & Penke, L. (2015). Zeroing in on the genetics of intelligence. Journal of Intelligence, 3(2), 41–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Pijlman, F. T., Mesman, J., & Juffer, F. (2008). Experimental evidence for differential susceptibility: Dopamine D4 receptor polymorphism (DRD4 VNTR) moderates intervention effects on toddlers’ externalizing behavior in a randomized controlled trial. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 293–300.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W., Harrington, H., et al. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301(5631), 386–389.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Galton, F. (1876). The history of twins, as a criterion of the relative powers of nature and nurture. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 5, 391–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. New York: Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gillham, N. W. (2001). Sir Francis Galton and the birth of eugenics. Annual review of genetics, 35(1), 83–101.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Haas, B. W., Filkowski, M. M., Cochran, R. N., Denison, L., Ishak, A., Nishitani, S., & Smith, A. K. (2016). Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(27), E3816–E3823.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hahn, E., & Spinath, F. M. (2017). Quantitative behavior genetics of internet addiction. In Internet addiction (pp. 125–140). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Henry, D. (2006). Aristotle on the mechanism of inheritance. Journal of the History of Biology, 39(3), 425–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jang, K. L., Livesley, W. J., & Vemon, P. A. (1996). Heritability of the big five personality dimensions and their facets: A twin study. Journal of Personality, 64(3), 577–592.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Karg, K., Burmeister, M., Shedden, K., & Sen, S. (2011). The serotonin transporter promoter variant (5-HTTLPR), stress, and depression meta-analysis revisited: Evidence of genetic moderation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 68(5), 444–454.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Knopik, V. S., Neiderhiser, J. M., DeFries, J. C., & Plomin, R. (2016). Behavioral genetics. New York: Worth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langbehn, D. R., Brinkman, R. R., Falush, D., Paulsen, J. S., & Hayden, M. R. (2004). A new model for prediction of the age of onset and penetrance for Huntington’s disease based on CAG length. Clinical Genetics, 65(4), 267–277.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Meaney, M. J. (2001). Nature, nurture, and the disunity of knowledge. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 935(1), 50–61.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Meaney, M. J. (2010). Epigenetics and the biological definition of gene × environment interactions. Child Development, 81(1), 41–79.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, C., Notterman, D., Brooks-Gunn, J., Hobcraft, J., Garfinkel, I., Jaeger, K., et al. (2011). Role of mother’s genes and environment in postpartum depression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(20), 8189–8193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montag, C., & Reuter, M. (2014). Disentangling the molecular genetic basis of personality: From monoamines to neuropeptides. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 43, 228–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montag, C., Jurkiewicz, M., & Reuter, M. (2012). The role of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene in personality and related psychopathological disorders. CNS & Neurological Disorders-Drug Targets (Formerly Current Drug Targets-CNS & Neurological Disorders), 11(3), 236–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montag, C., Hall, J., Plieger, T., Felten, A., Markett, S., Melchers, M., & Reuter, M. (2015). The DRD3 Ser9Gly polymorphism, Machiavellianism, and its link to schizotypal personality. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, & Economics, 8(1), 48–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montag, C., Hahn, E., Reuter, M., Spinath, F. M., Davis, K., & Panksepp, J. (2016). The role of nature and nurture for individual differences in primary emotional systems: Evidence from a twin study. PloS One, 11(3), e0151405.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Plieger, T., Felten, A., Melchers, M., Markett, S., Montag, C., & Reuter, M. (2018). Association between a functional polymorphism on the dopamine-β-hydroxylase gene and reward dependence in two independent samples. Personality and Individual Differences,121, 218–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polderman, T. J., Benyamin, B., De Leeuw, C. A., Sullivan, P. F., Van Bochoven, A., Visscher, P. M., & Posthuma, D. (2015). Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies. Nature Genetics, 47(7), 702–709.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, S. (2002). Variance components models for gene–environment interaction in twin analysis. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 5(6), 554–571.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reiss, D., Leve, L. D., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (2013). How genes and the social environment moderate each other. American Journal of Public Health, 103(S1), S111–S121.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Riemann, R., Angleitner, A., & Strelau, J. (1997). Genetic and environmental influences on personality: A study of twins reared together using the self-and peer report NEO-FFI scales. Journal of Personality, 65(3), 449–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Risch, N., Herrell, R., Lehner, T., Liang, K. Y., Eaves, L., Hoh, J., et al. (2009). Interaction between the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), stressful life events, and risk of depression: A meta-analysis. Jama, 301(23), 2462–2471.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Toyokawa, S., Uddin, M., Koenen, K. C., & Galea, S. (2012). How does the social environment ‘get into the mind’? Epigenetics at the intersection of social and psychiatric epidemiology. Social Science & Medicine, 74(1), 67–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • VanTassel-Baska, J. (2005). Gifted programs and services: What are the nonnegotiables? Theory Into Practice, 44(2), 90–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Youngson, N. A., & Whitelaw, E. (2008). Transgenerational epigenetic effects. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 9, 233–257.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, T. Y., & Meaney, M. J. (2010). Epigenetics and the environmental regulation of the genome and its function. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 439–466.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

The position of Christian Montag is funded by a Heisenberg grant awarded to him by the German Research Foundation (DFG, MO2363/3-2).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany

    Christian Montag

  2. Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation/Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

    Christian Montag

  3. Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Elisabeth Hahn

Authors
  1. Christian Montag
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elisabeth Hahn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Montag .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Educational Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Patrizia Velotti

  2. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Patrizia Velotti

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Montag, C., Hahn, E. (2018). Nature-Nurture Debate. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_822-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_822-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation