Is The Personality Inherited? Find Out What Science Has To Say About It

Is the personality inherited? Perhaps we have some traces of our parents’ ways? Plus… can our kids develop our introversion, insecurity, or that self-sufficiency that defines us? Many people have asked themselves these questions.

One thing we must make clear first is that personality is multifactorial. It includes multiple variables, both environmental and social, those related to our experiences and, of course, genetic ones. So the answer to this question, a priori, is yes: we inherit our family’s personality, but only a few traits, just a few brushstrokes.

No one is a decal of your mother or a clone of your father. We are people who shape their personality over the years, taking as a reference, above all, the accumulated experience. Let’s dive a little deeper into this aspect.

Personality is inherited, but there are nuances

There will be people who feel proud of having their mother’s perseverance. Others, in turn, appreciate having that social openness from the father and the ease of relating to others. However, given these characteristics, some may ask: are these factors really “genetic” or do we limit ourselves to imitating what we saw in our early years?

In fact, when it comes to building our personality, our parents often serve as role models. That is, we integrate what we see, and we often behave the same way they do because that’s what children do: they imitate what they see. Now there are nuances. It is estimated that around 40-50% of the personality is inherited.

The rest of the factors are in the social environment and the accumulation of experiences. There’s a study by the University of Minnesota in the 1990s that digs into this idea. The research was done with separated monozygotic twins. The goal was to understand if, even though they grew up in different environments, they had similarities in personality.

The answer was yes. Not only did they share the same temperament and personality, they also had similar hobbies and even a very similar IQ. In other words, the genetic component is very present in our personality.

Creativity, cordiality, neuroticism… Factors that can be inherited

We inherit from our parents the color of eyes, skin, height and vulnerability to certain threats. However, we were unsure about the factors that most affect this inheritance, as well as the traits most likely to be inherited.

It seems that creativity is one of them, as well as the dimensions that appear in McCrae and Costa’s “Big Five” theory, that is, extroversion, neuroticism, cordiality, openness to experience and responsibility. Thus, one of the variables frequently observed is the one related to neuroticism.

Emotional instability and the tendency to experience states such as anxiety more often are aspects that we (sometimes) inherit from our parents.

Personality is inherited, but the environmental factor has a greater impact

We know genetics are important. Every day we learn more about this area, about our genome and its mysteries. However, when it comes to understanding how human personality is constructed, environmental variables are more important than genetics. Genes do not determine us 100%, but the environment in which we grow up does.

What does that mean? That everything that happens to us makes us unique. This implies that where we live, what happens to us, and how we interpret what happens to us, shape our personality year after year.

A study carried out at the University of Zagreb indicated something remarkable. Sometimes, genetic factors inherited from our parents’ personality can intensify or weaken over time. This reminds us, once again, that personality is not a stable, permanent entity. People evolve, and this may involve an approximation of how our parents are (or were) or, conversely, the abandonment of many traits and patterns.

If genetics is important, does that mean we’re born with the fundamentals of our personality?

Personality is inherited; we already know that we can exhibit some characteristics of our parents. Does this mean that every baby comes into the world based on a specific personality? Not really. When a baby is born, what it shows is temperament, not personality type.

These temperaments define and explain how they react to the environment: they adapt to routines, are more or less energetic, cry more or less frequently, react more or less to stimuli, are more or less demanding, etc. There are, therefore, children with easier temperaments (adaptable) and others who react with greater anxiety, apprehension, etc.

These characteristics can later lay the foundation for your personality. However, how we raise them, how we help them manage their emotions and guide them in their daily lives, is what will build – in part – their way of being. We conclude by highlighting something important: although we inherit our parents’ genes, we don’t 100% inherit their way of being, feeling, acting and reacting to things. Experience and environment are the most determining factors.