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1.3.2Is Personality Genetic—That Is, Inherited?
The genetic code to build a head full of specialized modules evolved in response to selective pressure over millions of years. Being born with music-acquisition, language-acquisition and other skills and abilities already wired in your brain means you were born with a basic personality. You inherited it from your parents. But the personality you had at birth differed substantially from the personalities of your parents.
Your modular brain structures are not completely developed, connected, and constructed at birth. That’s why it takes some time before you can talk and sing.
The same applies to other aspects of your development. It takes several years before your permanent teeth come in. If you’re female, you don’t begin to develop breasts until puberty. If you’re male, you don’t grow facial hair until then. Nevertheless, at birth, you have the brain wiring in place for all this to happen.
From childhood on, the surrounding culture shapes the personality you were born with, but does not replace it. The personality you have today owes its character partly to your genetic inheritance (perhaps half), and partly to your personal environment (perhaps half)—especially your peer group.
(NOTE: This does not mean that your genetic inheritance causes 50% of your personality and your peer group causes the other 50%. Instead, it refers to observed variance in measures of personality and behaviour due to diversity among individuals in all kinds of areas related to upbringing, such as education, religion, leisure activities, and so on.)
Genetic inheritance influences everyone’s behaviour today, as it always has. That is, no matter how “enculturated” we humans think we’ve become, we have not by any means “outgrown our genes”!