Philippe: Yes, and we are getting more snow. It was -10 F this morning (-23 C) and more snow for tonight. But I'm "in the country" so we handle it better than the cities.
The 50/40/10 is probably accurate. It's close to 50% based on data from Caprara et al. (2009) Human optimal functioning: The genetics of positive orientation toward self, life, and the future. _Behavioral Genetics_. Also, Plomin et al recent book "Behavioral Genetics" (2013) cites 30 to 60% genetics on "subjective well being". The last time I looked seriously at twin/heritability research, I was working through gene/environment overlap, for example, gene-environment co-variance; people create their own environments. So the split into 3 simple categories is simplified .. but the 50% is probably close to the mark. And yes, any r squared gives us "percent of variance" .. by the way, a crude way to estimate heritability is to double the difference between the correlations of MZ and DZ twins. So if r(mz) = .9 and r(dz) = .5, Heritability = 2*(.4) = .80. But there are more elaborate and accurate methods.There is lots of good info in the Wikipedia entry which gets technical very quickly. On simple thing I stress with students is that the 50% figure refers to amount of _variance_ so it cannot be applied to individuals, only populations. JK ========================== John W. Kulig, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Coordinator, Psychology Honors Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 ========================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philippe Gervaix" <phil.gerv...@bluewin.ch> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2013 4:41:17 PM Subject: [tips] Sources of happiness Hello from the not so snowy side of the ocean! One of my students presented an end of school project on the sources of happiness, and quoted a "50/40/10" proportion as being scientifically established: 50% attributed to genes, 40% to "us" and 10% left to ouside events. Quite a few popolar books and TV shows here in Europe have taken up on these numbers. A column in yesterday's NY Times caught my attention http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/a-formula-for-happiness.html "To review: About half of happiness is genetically determined. Up to an additional 40 percent comes from the things that have occurred in our recent past — but that won’t last very long. That leaves just about 12 percent..." Any critical thoughts on my students numbers or the NY Times Sunday morning article? Also, I am looking for a critical review of the researches on twins quoted in the article. BTW, am I mistaken, or doesn't a 0.7 correlation only accounts for 50% of the variance? Have a nice Xmas holiday! Philippe Gervaix phil.gerv...@bluewin.ch Lycée de Burier Montreux Switzerland --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: ku...@mail.plymouth.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454&n=T&l=tips&o=31508 or send a blank email to leave-31508-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=31535 or send a blank email to leave-31535-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
