How to be more like your parents. Or no.

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IOscar Wilde 1895 celebration comedy, The importance of seriousnessone of the protagonists famously asserted, “All women are like mothers. This is their tragedy.” This is obviously hyperbolic, but a traditional suggestion is a traditional advice a young man usually gets before getting married, never saying to his wife, “You are becoming a mother.”

Thoughts like parents are rarely regarded as a kind of praise, or even as one. People will naturally resist the idea that some kind of genetic or environmental vortex is attracting them to be a version of others, especially when someone is a direct predecessor, they may have some ambivalent feelings. Even if your mom and dad are really great, you feel nothing but love and admiration for them, we still want to be unique.

But are we? Social scientists and evolutionary biologists have been interested in this issue for decades, not only to find genetic connections to fear disease, but also because we are curious about the future of our relationship, secular success and happiness, through understanding the personality traits that help or hinder our parents are also shaping us. Is your destined to be addicted because your father did it? Will you bless others like your mother?

There is a lot of evidence on this topic that we do indeed have similar genetic tendencies to parents (and other relatives). However, there are only so many similarities and it depends to a lot on how you view the past and how you decide to build your own life. With knowledge and commitment, you can get a lot of good deeds from mom and dad, but most of them leave parts that you don’t like.

rResearchers are studying The heritability of personality is often approached by investigating the personality of parents and their adult children, focusing on the 5 large traits of so-called extroversion, open experience, neuroticism, consent, and conscience. They usually use information about genetic similarity and statistical techniques and often find that half of the differences in overall personality (48% exactly) can be attributed to genetic factors, while the other half (52%) (52%). Within this framework, extroverts tend to be slightly inherited slightly slightly inherited, while the environment is the one that agrees and is responsible. Research also shows that father-son similarity is more environmentally friendly than mother-daughter similarity.

A distortion of the survey method involves comparing biological and adult child pairs in adopted families. In a well-known and still influential 1985 study, researchers found that in most ways, shared genes have a greater influence than shared environments. For example, the social correlation between mother and biological children is 15 times higher than that between mother and adopted children. For self-acceptance, this finding is six times higher.

The heritability of personality is always fun, but many people are more worried to avoid problems that are susceptible to in their families, such as emotional disorders and addictions. For example, major depression is found to be about 30% to 50%. A 2006 study of twins found that men had heritability at 29% and women had 42%. The researchers believe they have identified the biological source of this phenomenon: a "short" variant of the serotonin transporter gene. However, they also pointed out that people who suffer from stress in their parents during early childhood lead to excessive activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which is more likely to suffer from depression later in life.

Addiction is more heritable. Studies estimate that genetic effects are 30% to 70% of the causes of addiction. Although this makes conditions determined by inheritance highly determined compared to other traits, addiction is also easier to manage than other genetic traits through treatments and therapies that can alter behavior.

The popular wisdom is that people become more like parents as they get older. Research in 2020 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Revealing that genetically similar people behave more similarly as they age -But only Siblings and parents share similar environments, such as living in the same general cultural environment. Therefore, it may be possible to see parents who often live in the same city or share similar communities to become more like parents

Unless, that is think arrive. Scholars in 2008 tested the personality of parents and children, but also corrected their estimates of "focus", which meant admiration for parents, leading children to want to imitate them. They found that the higher the child's opinion, the greater the genetic influence of parents on their child's personality. The lower the attention, the lower the similarity. Researchers accordingly found that children who perceive their parents’ rejection are unlikely to be like them, while children who grow up in a warm, loving home are more like parents.

tAkan Togetherresearch shows that if you appreciate parents and want to be more like them, you can and will, especially as the years pass. But if you would rather be someone like them, there are a lot you can do to create your own path. To achieve this, focus on both approaches.

1. Make the environment you want and live in it.
Anyone with several kids will tell you that they look different and that usually becomes more obvious as they grow. This may actually be the source of sadness for older parents, as the differences between siblings (beliefs, values, lifestyles) can become so huge that they seem to be strangers to each other. As scholars point out, this difference is explained by the fact that even in the family, the environment each sibling experiences can vary dramatically, and these environmental factors become more obvious as the sibling enters their independent adult life.

You can rely on this differentiation to create an alternative environment for yourself, in sharp contrast to the environment of your family. This actually allows you to make the unforgettable half of your character more impactful. For example, if your parents have spent their entire lives in a region of the country, try moving it to a very different place. If they reject religion, you may try to make it a part of your life. If they drink a lot, please don't drink alcohol. You get it. Your genes are fairly fixed, but the environment you live in is under your control.

2. Use vision lever.
People tend to talk about their family background and nurturing with binary - your childhood is Wonderfulor horrible. In fact, almost everyone's experience is more vague than this, with both positive and negative factors. Describing your parents as all bad or all good is not particularly useful for your emotional and mental health.

You can make better decisions about your adult life by listing the personality traits, beliefs, values, habits, and behaviors typical of your family and adding a specific trait next to each person that you want to retain. This exercise sets a level of attention for every aspect of the family you named. As mentioned above, it has a great impact on the genetic expression of parental traits in you, which makes it a convenient lever to lift or gradually lower the expression of a given trait.

Say your mother is irresponsible for money; obviously, this will be subtracted. But she is still a generous person. That got the plus sign. She is also an extrovert, which is not your strong trait, so zero. The list you create and the ranking you give can be revelatory for the first time, but I also recommend you refresh it and stay up to date. You can then review it regularly to see if you still agree with yourself and make sure you strive to match your lifestyle with your respect and shortcomings.

oNE's last thoughts: We are all someone’s children, but you may or may become a parent yourself. Well, your focus may decrease how you become a parent and whether more children will be like you. Of course, you want them to mimic your positive traits and avoid your negative traits. A good starting point is to be totally honest with yourself, rather than pretending that those negative traits do not exist or are positive in some way. For example, some people like to pat themselves in the back because they are always "tell it like it!" But from your child's perspective, it may also be awkward wit or downright annoying to your friends.

Once you are honestly seeing positive positives from negatives, open these traits with your children, listen to their feedback, and show that you are trying to change what is not earning their respect. The researchers fully illustrate the strong impact of children achieving goals by observing their parents: when young children see their parents struggling for something and succeed, they themselves continue more.

You can't know the most important thing than knowing that human clay we inherit, but the work that each of us is always in progress. And we can shape this clay ourselves.