I agree...also, Erick Turkheimer's data in Psychological Science suggest much
lower heritabilities for IQ in low SES groups. Still controversial (although I
tend to trust just about anything that Turkheimer does).
Also, heritability doesn't necessitate unmalleability, as the concept of
reaction range reminds us. So there's no inherent incompatibility between the
moderate to high heritability of IQ and data such as that reported by Dweck and
others.
...Scott
Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D.
Professor
Editor, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice
Department of Psychology, Room 473 Psychology and Interdisciplinary Sciences
(PAIS)
Emory University
36 Eagle Row
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
[email protected]
(404) 727-1125
Psychology Today Blog:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-skeptical-psychologist
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology:
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-140513111X.html
Scientific American Mind: Facts and Fictions in Mental Health Column:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciammind/
The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between his work and
his play,
his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his
recreation,
his love and his intellectual passions. He hardly knows which is which.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does,
leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.
To him - he is always doing both.
- Zen Buddhist text
(slightly modified)
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:18 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] nature versus nurture: more general discussion
On 19 Nov 2009 at 10:57, [email protected] wrote:
> I start teaching that some things are fairly set, such as
> personality, and that these in-born characteristics determine
> how others respond to us.
> I wish there were some strong data to support one side or another for most of
> these things. I believe that
> the behavior geneticists have a very strong set of evidence, as Scott noted,
> that many human characteristics
> are largely determined by nature. But if that's the case, then where do the
> data come from that show that
> abilities such as intelligence are mutable?
These statements require qualification. It's not the case that personality is
an in-born characteristic and "fairly set". In fact, if I recall correctly,
estimates of heritability run at around 0.50 for personality, which leaves
plenty of room for an environmental effect. The catch is that little or none
of this is shared environment, and shared environment includes parental
upbringing effects. The environmental component is almost entirely made up of
non-shared environment--the unique experiences which are different for
different members of the family. Judy Harris, in her second book _No Two Alike_
(2006) takes a crack at identifying how these non-shared environmental effects
make people different (hint: it's not the parents). And I'm dearly hoping we
won't hear from Joan on this book too.
For IQ, the figure for heritability is generally found to be higher, typically
in the 0.70 range, although there is a wide range of estimates. In school-aged
children, while they are still at home, the figure is lower, and there is a
clear shared environment effect. . So parents do seem to matter. But there's a
catch which many don't seem to know about. This is only true in the child. As
the child gets older and leaves the home, less and less of the environmental
component can be attributed to shared effects, and as a adult, the shared
component largely disappears. So parents matter at first to IQ, but later,
very little.
Stephen
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Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
e-mail: [email protected]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7
Canada
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