--- Selma wrote: > > Dear Santosh, > > I'm quite curious about this subject since I am in > the > company of little children very often these days, > I've > taken to observing them keenly. >
Dear Selma, This post of yours slipped my attention. You are right, in general, regarding the interactions between genes and environment. However, recent studies, especially those comparing identical twins with fraternal twins, and twins reared apart, have shown that antisocial and aggressive behavior of children is substantially genetically determined. One other curious feature is that as children grow up to become adults the environmental influence, especially, of the parental kind assumes lesser importance, and genetic tendencies become paradoxically more prominent. This has been shown to be the case with regard to religiosity, for instance. Now to find out about the great extent to which the overall behavior of young children is innate, I would recommend you "What Infants Know" by Jacques Mehler and Emmanuel Dupoux. It reviews most of the recent findings on the cognitive science of early development. Cheers, Santosh