[HN Gopher] Familial Transmission of Personality Is Higher Than ...
___________________________________________________________________
Familial Transmission of Personality Is Higher Than Shown in
Typical Studies
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 120 points
Date : 2024-05-09 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| jokoon wrote:
| Even when kids are put in school, they still spend a lot of time
| with their parents, and children do a lot of mimetic
|
| Would genetics lead to some personality disorder that are common
| in a family, and would that lead to similar personalities? Or
| would some brain-related genes lead to some forms of personality
| tendencies?
|
| I would also guess the definition of personality could be
| rejected by skeptics, since it's very difficult to define how we
| perceive or measure personality traits. It's scientific, but many
| would have no problem undermining some aspects of those
| definitions.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| > and children do a lot of mimetic
|
| Do you mean they learn by osmosis from their parents? That's a
| known thing already and it's very obvious.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Only if they have a pool.
| firewolf34 wrote:
| Something nobody seems to mention that could be a convoluting
| factor...
|
| I wonder if this operates bidirectionally - if parents learn
| traits from their offspring, maybe to a lesser extent. If you
| have a group of people that constantly spend time around each
| other, they all seem to average out their social tendencies
| over time, to some degree. As children get older and develop
| more defined characteristics, it's possible this isn't a one-
| way street.
| Aeolun wrote:
| To some extend, but at 36 I'm already pretty set in my
| ways. While my son might occassionally affect me, I think
| the reverse is a constant.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| Genetics would not impart all personalities, but generally
| would impart many autistic spectrum traits - which covers a
| large swath of social interactions - however keep in mind
| autism is so many genes that a parent may have a completely
| different reaction to something than their child, and the fact
| that there is a second gene pool.
|
| For the most part, those genes have massive effects on hormone
| levels during development which has a huge affect on
| personality. In general this is why the linkage between
| personality and heredity is so hard to track.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| > Would genetics lead to some personality disorder that are
| common in a family, and would that lead to similar
| personalities?
|
| To some extent, yes. "Personality disorders" are caused by a
| combination of genetic predispositions and behavior. For
| instance, someone with a high level of sensitivity might learn
| from their parents and the environment to become anxious.
|
| > I would also guess the definition of personality could be
| rejected by skeptics
|
| The thing to understand about psychology is that all the lines
| are arbitrarily drawn, and other cultures have traditionally
| had other labels than the west does. There's honestly no escape
| from the arbitrariness of it, but it helps to come up with
| _some_ sort of system.
| civilian wrote:
| The personality metrics they're using are the Big-5. The Big 5
| has good test-retest scores (if you take the test a month
| apart, you're likely to get the same scores). Big 5 is used in
| a ton of psychological studies now.
|
| If I had to bet on nature vs nurture, I'd place bets on nature.
| Separated twin studies seem to suggest genes are a strong
| determiner. And if you've ever met a kid who stubbornly prefers
| to be introverted or extroverted-- it often has nothing to do
| with how adults are treating them.
| Jach wrote:
| Most people are unaware of the separated twin studies and it
| shows.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| >And if you've ever met a kid who stubbornly prefers to be
| introverted or extroverted...
|
| My mom says she had an inkling I would be introverted (like
| my dad) and my sister would be extraverted (like her) just
| based on our behavior in the womb. I was very calm and
| nonreactive, while my sister was a big kicker and very
| reactive to external stimuli. Those personality traits have
| indeed persisted through adulthood.
| nomel wrote:
| There have been studies against twins, separated at birth, that
| suggest there is a significant genetic component to personality
| [1]. To me, this seems obvious.
|
| [1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/01/double-
| life#:~:text=That....
| crmd wrote:
| The big difference seems to come from self-reporting vs
| independent reporting. In other words, people around you think
| your personality is more similar to your dad's than you think it
| is.
| alistairSH wrote:
| As I grow older, the number of "oh shit, I sound like my dad"
| moments grows exponentially. Good thing people seem to like him
| - if he was a gigantic ass, I'd be in trouble. ;)
| em-bee wrote:
| same here. once i had children i recognized some of the
| behavior traits of how my dad treated me and my siblings. the
| difficult ones are the ones done unconsciously. i didn't
| recognize some until i saw my own kids repeating them. my
| wife also at one point recognized behaviors she learned from
| her parents. this recognition helped us both to better
| understand each other and accept our respective quirks.
| apwell23 wrote:
| My dad has an habit of making an innocent remark that other
| party percives as offensive. He blurts out things in his
| enthusiasm. I used to feel second hand embarssement from it
| when i was younger.
|
| Now i see catch myself doing the same thing. I even got into
| trouble at work for it.
| eastbound wrote:
| I have this. I don't notice it. People must think I'm
| really socially stupid. I try to say things that I think
| are commonly-shared. Then, in every group, out of nowhere
| (it's only months later that I remember what may have
| triggered it), I'm expelled (generally for another reason,
| because it would be too simple if people said "I don't like
| you because...").
|
| I'm 40 and since 4 years, my solution is to recluse myself
| and meet as few people as I can, with people who get over
| my defect.
|
| I must be able to do something about it, but it requires
| tremendous effort. Basically I have to try to remain silent
| and innocuous as much as I can, and guess people. It's
| hell.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| I have something similar but it's mostly just tended to
| mean that I socialise with others who don't take
| themselves too seriously.
|
| Life's too short to waste on those who don't appreciate
| you. :)
| skissane wrote:
| I think mainstream culture used to be more tolerant of
| people saying unintentionally hurtful things. And that
| cultural change puts at an disadvantage individuals who
| have higher autistic traits, impulsivity, etc. Whereas,
| people at the opposite end of the personality trait
| spectrum aren't disadvantaged by it to anywhere near the
| same degree
| ortusdux wrote:
| I agree. I've noticed that people tend to think they are
| average in comparison to someone else in their family with a
| slightly stronger expression of a trait. "You think I'm frugal!
| You should meet my mother! She always ..."
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| A few weeks ago, I noticed a personality "quirk" in my 14 yr
| old daughter that had disappeared in my own teens. I've never
| told my wife, no one else has told her (not alot of my family
| left to tell it, they might not even have been aware). It's
| specific, non-subjective. It seems almost impossible that it
| should be genetic (but I have no other idea how it might
| heritably transmit).
|
| The idea that personality is heritable is, to me, not
| farfetched at all.
|
| My son is 11, I'll get to see if he does the same within a few
| years.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Quite possibly a quick of yours can cause your daughter's
| quirk, and a parent of yours had it too.
| munk-a wrote:
| We tend to define ourselves by our differences and I think this
| is especially true when it comes to close contacts - our family
| is the large comparator so often times you might hear "Well,
| I'm more short tempered than my father" from an incredibly calm
| person - and that contrast that they've observed may be quite
| correct from their perspective but measured against others it
| is a relatively less significant difference.
| extr wrote:
| Something interesting to me is I have an 8 month old son.
| Everyone around me says he looks just like me. To me, he
| doesn't look like anyone in particular at all.
| sublinear wrote:
| Not trying to be an edgy contrarian, but my dad was never
| around and I turned out very different as a result. My mother
| also worked a lot, so completely checked out and a neglectful
| enabler. I despised a lot about both my parents. When I would
| introduce them it tended to hurt my relationships unless they
| too had crappy parents, so I stopped doing that. I spent most
| of my childhood and early adult life with other people's
| families.
|
| The far more interesting study to me is how much genetics can
| be overcome due to harsh circumstances.
| wtcactus wrote:
| Of course this is anecdotal but it's obvious for me I do share
| several personality traits with my parents. I can see the same in
| many of my close acquaintances.
|
| Of course this warrants a lot of social issues we simply don't
| want to face, but I always felt we were just trying to make them
| a tabu to discuss.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Is it nature vs nurture? If, so, how does your anecdote
| untangle that?
| lazide wrote:
| I think the taboo the poster was referring to was more along
| the lines of discussion of actual free will, level of control
| of self, etc.
|
| My take is that free will is, 90% of the time, a necessary
| lie. Because if we didn't believe it, everything would get
| far far worse.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> My take is that free will is, 90% of the time, a
| necessary lie. Because if we didn't believe it, everything
| would get far far worse.
|
| Why? Would people choose to do bad things because they
| don't have a choice?
| lazide wrote:
| If people can argue they should not be held accountable
| for doing something bad, because they defacto had no
| choice (due to nature/nurture) - and people will take
| that seriously - then exactly the worse kind of people
| will never be held accountable.
|
| And folks on the fence will hop over it onto that side.
|
| Because consequences do matter for preventing most
| behavior (weighed by the rational and non-rational part
| of the mind), but punishing someone for something they
| can't control seems cruel - and that will stop many
| people from applying them. Resulting in more damage and
| more bad behavior.
|
| So regardless of if it's true or not, treating it as true
| is fundamental for a functioning society.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| This is conjecture. Why are the people on the fence
| choosing the dark side? Why does a lack of free will
| preclude the possibility of any kind of consequences?
| lazide wrote:
| Regarding your first point - usually because the 'dark
| side' is easier (short term), and life periodically gets
| hard. So it's often inevitable. Especially in the face of
| others doing bad acts to you.
|
| Regarding the second - see my comment.
|
| At least in the western world, most crimes require fault
| and mens rea. Those require someone being able to make a
| informed choice, which means having free will. If there
| is (actually) no choice, or the choice was based on
| faulty information processing (aka actual insanity), then
| therefore there is no fault and no mens rea.
|
| The underlying belief (philosophically) is one cannot be
| good or evil if one cannot comprehend a choice or it's
| ramifications, or in fact actually effectively choose
| between options due to a lack of knowledge and
| independent agency.
|
| Interestingly, this is why the 'original sin' in
| Christian mythology was eating the apple from the tree of
| the knowledge of good and evil. [https://link.springer.co
| m/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-0-3....]
|
| So philosophically, before that point, there was no
| 'good' or 'evil' because humans didn't know of such
| things, therefore were just acting. Regardless of what
| they did, they were innocent, because they were incapable
| of being anything else. After that, everything they did
| had such knowledge as a factor, and were no longer
| innocent - because they could choose.
|
| So, for example, if I murder someone in cold blood (aka
| rational/thinking/choosing), that is 1st degree murder.
| One of the most serious crimes in any society.
|
| However, if I murder my spouse because I found they
| betrayed me right in front of me and lose my mind
| (literally can't think straight, and react instinctively
| without being able to think or plan anything), most
| locations will consider me not guilty by reason of
| insanity, and let me go.
| [https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/temporary_insanity]
|
| This is already a great example of the problem, as MANY
| folks try to claim insanity already after getting caught
| when they are not actually insane.
|
| Another example is if I accidentally kill someone without
| knowing such a thing was a possibility. For example, I'm
| out hunting in the woods. I see a deer, and (as far as I
| know) legally shoot it. However, it turns out that was
| actually a human dressed in a very convincing deer
| costume, and I had no way of knowing this was the case.
| Most of the time, I would be charged with no crime, or
| worst case likely negligent homicide.
|
| As per the Supreme Court of Iowa, "In order to be an
| excuse and defense for a criminal act, the person
| accused, and who claims [temporary] insanity as a
| defense, must prove that the crime charged was caused by
| mental disease or unsoundness which dethroned, overcame,
| or swayed her reason and judgment with respect to that
| act, which destroyed her power rationally to comprehend
| the nature and consequences of that act."
|
| If we assert that people actually act based on their
| nature/upbringing and have little to no rational control
| over their actions in fact (aka no free will), then does
| it not follow that no one actually has a choice, and
| therefore it makes no sense to actually punish anyone for
| anything they do? Since philosophically, without the
| ability to rationally _actually_ choose their actions,
| they cannot be good or bad - they just are.
|
| And if we punish people based on who they 'just are',
| that opens another can of very nasty worms, and likely a
| lot of serious evil will result.
| kipchak wrote:
| Would removing the punitive aspect of punishment be
| enough to keep things making sense? For example with
| temporary insanity someone isn't considered deserving of
| retribution without real fault, but incapacitation and
| rehabilitation might still be justifiable if there was a
| risk of reoccurrence. Deterrence seems like it could also
| still be justifiable, for example if you thought someone
| could be aware of such a punishment while temporarily
| insane and less likely to commit murder as a result.
|
| My understanding is the focus on punitive punishment has
| been higher than average since roughly the 1970s
| beginning with the war on drugs and is arguably not
| working very well measured in incarceration rates (US is
| #6th worldwide) so a shift seems away from culpability
| seems like it could potentially be a positive change.
| That being said like you say it's potentially it's own
| can of worms overcorrecting the other way.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There is a feedback loop and moral hazard, so you need
| some fixed punishment as deterrent.
|
| If a unique situation not likely to reoccur is an defense
| for criminal behavior, Then this rule provides the unique
| situation.
|
| Imagine a rule that rehabilitation is the punishment for
| a first murder. For a rational person, this is a free
| pass to commit exactly one murder, because as soon as
| they do, they have every reason to avoid the 2nd and
| require no rehabilitation for compliance.
| lazide wrote:
| That reduces expected consequences, but I don't see how
| that changes the problem.
| em-bee wrote:
| the issue with free will is that even with 100% free will,
| life is an optimization problem. we can not possibly make a
| conscious decision for everything we do. we'd stop
| breathing. therefore we must rely on doing things by habit.
| and where do we learn habits? from our parents.
|
| i fall on strongly on the nurture side of the nature vs
| nurture question, but the issue is that with the amount of
| habits and behavior patterns that we acquire, we simply
| don't have the capacity to change all of them without
| effort. we can change a few at a time, and each can take
| considerable effort to change. not to mention many that we
| are not even aware of.
|
| in short, there is no need to fall back to nature as a
| reason for why certain behaviors don't change. moreover,
| even if a certain behavior is nature, i believe willpower
| can allow us to change that too.
|
| what bothers me is that nature or lack of free will are
| abused to excuse certain behaviors as unchangeable.
| everything can be changed, because humans are very
| adaptable. we just need to carefully consider which things
| we actually want to change.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think free will is simply a restatement of the fact the
| future is unknowable and the humans are agents.
|
| You cant 100% predict what a person will do without
| duplicating the entire person and the world they are
| interacting with.
|
| Even if everything is causally driven by historic
| circumstance, it is the human that synthesizes that history
| and computes an action
| lazide wrote:
| That is not what free will is (philosophically). Free
| will is the belief that we can choose our actions.
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will]
|
| In your statement, there is no choice - just a lack of
| predictability due to unknown starting states.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Im saying that there is no difference, and most of the
| arguments around fee will and responsibility are
| distinctions without a difference.
|
| Individual choice happens if someone believes in an
| extra-physical soul or not. It happens if you believe in
| determinism or not.
|
| The question of if someone _could_ have made a different
| choice is meaningless without an argument for _why_
| someone would make have a different choice.
| lazide wrote:
| All you're saying you don't (actually) believe in free
| will, philosophically.
|
| People who do believe in free will make an argument that
| regardless of the input state, the individual always has
| a choice what course they take, and is responsible for
| those decisions.
|
| So for example, if someone chooses to be a concentration
| camp guard or a capo vs be a prisoner and be murdered -
| that is their choice, and they are responsible for it.
|
| If free will exists.
|
| It's a rather fundamental philosophical question,
| actually.
|
| Because those concentration camp guards and capos did
| pretty evil things, which were also (in their
| circumstances) often the least 'bad' thing for them.
| Which enabled evil at a truly massive scale against
| others because of those other peoples
| upbringings/genetics.
|
| And those prisoners (most of which had no choice in the
| matter) mostly ended up dead, and stopped having much of
| a say in the matter.
|
| This is why it's an important philosophical debate.
| Because if people play out a script based on their
| circumstances/upbringing/genetics and have no actual
| choice in the matter (philosophically), then isn't
| punishing those guards and capos essentially doing the
| same thing to them that they did to those prisoners?
| Hurting them due to factors outside of their (actual)
| control, even up to murder?
|
| And if we think that upbringing/genetics was a major
| factor in creating that sort of destructive evil, doesn't
| that open up the possibility of tracking down and
| killing/punishing other people based on their
| upbringing/genetics? Regardless of any individual choices
| they had made? In this example, other potential
| concentration camp guards and capos - though it would
| play out as relatives and those with similar genetic
| traits and upbringings?
|
| Which then creates the circumstances _exactly_ that was
| at the root cause of the Holocaust to begin with? Namely,
| assigning 'goodness' and 'badness' based on some general
| attribute (ethnicity aka genetics/upbringing, sexual
| orientation, etc.) that cannot be changed or chosen, and
| NOT a persons choices (aka did they commit a crime
| knowing good vs bad)?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >People who do believe in free will make an argument that
| regardless of the input state, the individual always has
| a choice what course they take, and is responsible for
| those decision
|
| My point is that even with free will, you have to have
| some difference in input to get different output.
| Normally people invoke metaphysics, but even if you have
| a soul making the choice, it still has inputs (good
| soul/bad soul). It is a different object making the
| choice, but changes nothing about the choice itself.
|
| I think the inside/outside of control argument is
| arbitrary with respect to responsibility. If you simply
| look at inputs and output actions, it doesnt matter what
| goes on the black box. It doesnt matter if it is biology,
| chemistry, or a soul, you still have a black box that
| takes inputs and executes an action.
|
| A black box selects an action, no mater the mechanism.
| The black box is the causal link, independent of
| "control" or "not".
|
| I'm not a philosophy expert, but this position reminds me
| consequentialism and Kantian ideas. I think it renders
| the different positions on free will/choice as
| distinctions without a difference. Doing something bad
| because you were programed to it is no better than doing
| something bad because you chose to.
|
| It doesn't matter if the capos made a choice, were
| predetermined, or could have done different if they were
| raised by a loving mother instead.
| pineaux wrote:
| I think the free will debate is not about this. Its more
| about the question if the mind is part of a deterministic
| universe, thus being deterministic itself. I dont believe
| this myself. The universe is quasi deterministic. I would
| say it's emergent. So there are constantly "random"
| things that are building on top of the n-1 condition.
| This random things can be an electron that moves left
| instead of right. Or it allows a person to make a slight
| nudge into a direction. Be it consciously or
| unconsciously. That is my theory. It fits my experience
| of the world and it doesnt violate any natural laws to my
| knowledge.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I guess my argument and problem is with the idea of a
| non-deterministic mind. I think it is a non-sensical
| concept. Even if the mind is free from physical world
| constraints, it is still subject to it's own nature. If
| the mind is self direction, the nature of the mind or
| soul determines its choice.
|
| I dont see how this changes the question of free will
| from a personal or moral responsibility perspective.
|
| Someone can ascribe no responsibility because actions are
| just the product of your physical inputs. Similarly, you
| can ascribe no responsibility because that is how
| someone's soul is made.
| philipov wrote:
| It's both. Attempting to reduce the complexity to just one or
| the other is a grave error.
|
| Here is a good starting point for getting educated on the
| matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL84
| 8F2368C...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The anecdotes don't untangle it, but academics sure as hell
| have studied adopted kids for traits that match their
| biological parents. Even more over have studied twins with
| identical genetics who grew up in separate households.
| halgir wrote:
| More anecdotes incoming, but I'm regularly told that I share
| traits with my father, with whom I don't share DNA. To the
| point that people who aren't aware that we're not
| biologically related have remarked that we look alike - which
| is amusing considering we're different ethnicities.
| tootie wrote:
| I read this years ago in NurtureShock. Studies of adopted kids
| showed they still shared more personality traits with biological
| parents than adoptive ones. In fact they measured the two biggest
| factors as genetics and peer relationships with parenting being
| marginal. If you casually observe good parents with good kids or
| vice versa that's mostly genetic. Of course there's also a big
| distinction between personality and behavior. Parenting can
| certainly influence behavior regardless of personality.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It seems that this is a taboo topic to discuss oftentimes
| (especially academically), despite the fact that most people I
| meet seem to have an intuitive understanding that kids are often
| like parents.
|
| It also provides compelling alternate explanations for things
| like 'children of abusive parents are more likely to abuse' that
| you also are not really allowed to discuss nowadays.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It seems kinda reasonable that if you think something is
| normal, you'll normally do it.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| And perhaps the children of people prone to anger and
| violence are more likely to engage in anger and violence for
| other reasons that we have already shown numerous times to be
| causal.
| throwaway924385 wrote:
| Why aren't you allowed to discuss it?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The suggestion that personality or really any sort of brain
| function is linked to genetics at all seems to fly in the
| face of mind-body dualism and Hollywood-movie-ethics ("anyone
| can do anything if they work hard enough") both of which are
| things most people seem to hold very dearly.
| piloto_ciego wrote:
| People can do a lot more than we give them credit for.
| Humans are fucking tough, creative, and persevering if you
| teach them to be. I worry that the people screaming the
| loudest about how we have no free will or no ability to
| even make choices because of physics and neuroscience are
| handicapping the next generation with a sort of learned
| helplessness.
|
| It is true that there are serious limitations on what I can
| or cannot do, but taking action and choosing to cast off
| the traits of parents that you don't like or think aren't
| productive _is_ possible. You _can_ change and go beyond
| your upbringing.
|
| You are a product of it, but you can decide to be
| different, I'm living proof. It's just hard.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I'm hardly screaming.
|
| I find the rhetoric when you start touching on things
| people don't like to be _so odd._ Suddenly I 'm portrayed
| as having some sort of temper tantrum about heritability
| or limiting the next generation's capability or whatever.
|
| I think the next generation, like this one, will be fine.
| My whole point is that you can do things other than your
| upbringing.
| pavlov wrote:
| It's become a very tiresome rhetorical technique: "Listen to
| me yammer on vaguely but at length about a thing that I
| pretend I'm not allowed to talk about despite literally doing
| that right now"
|
| Whatever aura of mystery and suspense this may have once
| imbued is long gone by now.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| "It's not taboo because people can discuss it anonymously
| on an internet forum" is not quite the compelling argument
| that you seem to think it is.
| throwaway924385 wrote:
| What do you want to discuss that you can't and where
| can't you discuss it?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > where can't you discuss it?
|
| Publicly, in academia, generally anywhere?
|
| > What do you want to discuss
|
| The topic at hand? The 'cycles of abuse' thing I
| mentioned earlier? GWAS with behavioral predictions and
| their usage in increasing the power of non-genetic
| behavioral studies? All sorts of things about genetic
| basis for behavior?
|
| Even the way I'm getting responded to here indicates that
| people are searching for a 'gotcha' - it would be much
| worse in actual academia.
|
| I don't really understand the motivation for denying this
| taboo exists.
| pavlov wrote:
| If it's such a taboo, why not just go to the essential
| point and state clearly what you're talking about since
| this is an Internet forum.
|
| The coy "I'm not allowed to talk about this, ooh" act is
| tiresome.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I feel like I have... multiple times now across many
| different comments.
|
| Stuff like hm, maybe the children of child abusers are
| likely to abuse children not only because they were
| raised that way but because of genetic behavioral
| factors. Or maybe the correlation between test scores and
| affluence doesn't mean that test scores are bunk or only
| measure affluence, but are partially due to heritable
| confounders and the "affluence bias" isn't as strong as
| we think.
|
| The essential point is that there is strong evidence for
| genetic heritability of behavior.
|
| But regardless, the point of my original comment was to
| discuss the interesting difference between
| academic/societal taboos and commonly held intuitions -
| not to enumerate all the possible taboo things related to
| this line of research.
| dleink wrote:
| If "children of child abusers are more likely to abuse
| children" were to be found undeniably true, how should we
| use this knowledge? Are you proposing some kind of public
| policy?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > how should we use this knowledge?
|
| One example: in future studies of interventions at
| reducing child abuse, if we can use genetic factors to
| explain away some of the variance, then we can better
| identify interventions that are effective at reducing
| child abuse that we wouldn't be able to identify
| otherwise.
|
| > Are you proposing some kind of public policy?
|
| Not in that case that immediately comes to mind, but if
| we discover some interventions as mentioned above ^ it
| could be useful. In the case of the test scores affluence
| one, it might take some (although not all) strength away
| from some of the arguments for dropping standardized
| testing.
| pineaux wrote:
| I think it depends on where in the world you are based.
|
| I think the reason people have a problem with it, is
| because they think that this knowledge will crush
| people's motivation to do the work that is necessary to
| succeed. If your hypothesis turns out to be true, then
| only people that have innate drive, skill and resources
| will be able to do the work to succeed. Accepting that
| theory as true implies that there are also people without
| the drive, skill and resources and what is to make of
| them? Are we not all created equal? Should we not have
| equal opportunities? Should these lower-people be helped?
| Do they deserve it? Do they "earn" to not earn a lot of
| money because they are born from the wrong mother? In the
| past this problem was solved with religion...
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| Just look at the people who are convinced they have to beat up
| their kids to discipline them because "I turned out fine".
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| This is arguably a different mechanism. Propagation of
| personality seems to be based lest on acute, specific,
| traumatic events like physical abuse. We understand to some
| degree why hurt people hurt other people. It's less clear why
| and how much we emulate our families in more subtle ways.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > We understand to some degree why hurt people hurt other
| people
|
| By "understand", you mean "have colloquial theories that we
| don't bother trying to falsify"
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| There are cross-disciplinary, longitudinal, and meta-
| analysis studies which seem to support that when people
| experience adversity or various forms of trauma, they are
| far more likely than the general population to perpetuate
| the same or other harms upon others. It doesn't strike me
| as colloquial at all. Psychology, neurology, and
| sociology each find this trend and various context-
| specific candidates for causal mechanisms.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What are the best studies?
|
| There is evidence pointing against environmental
| unicausality. [0][1] Both these and the studies you
| mention will have trouble disentangling causality because
| nobody can run ethical experiments.
|
| [0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2
| 66717432... [1]:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6758596/
| apples_oranges wrote:
| Nature > Nurture
| mjburgess wrote:
| For those who arent aware, this entire field is largely
| pseudoscience; though this paper goes out of its way to be fairly
| sincere in its modelling, it's still just nonesense
| methodologically.
|
| The correlation coefficient is not a measure of correlation, but
| of co-linearity, and coefficients < 0.5 are typically bunk, and
| _the entire system_ of computing correlation coefficients is bunk
| if the data is nonlinear. Almost all interesting phenomena
| outside are non-linear, esp. biology and higher, where
| nonlinearities arise from the mutual interaction of parts of the
| system. Here, the correlation coefficients are in the ~0.2 range.
| You might as well be staring at monkey entrials.
|
| Methodologically, you cannot construct explanatory models of
| weak-effect non-linear phenomena from observational data.
| Basically, you can fit any explanatory model you like, since you
| can make any parts of the system interact with any strength, and
| since they are non-linear, this will reproduce any distribution
| you so wish.
|
| You can entirely reproduce any heritability distribution, genetic
| covariance, "shared" parent-child, "unshared" child-child, etc.
| you want by changing this model. Observational data here is
| basically useless at discriminating. ie., i can make a model
| where genes are 100% irrelevant, or 100% determinative, _entirely
| consistent_ with the observational data.
|
| The only method which can distinguish here is interventional,
| ie., you have to actually control the causes of the system.
| However, since we cannot breed different groups with different
| genes; nor take the same person and run their life with differnet
| parents, friends, etc. you're basically out of luck.
|
| I'd prefer we closed this whole field down, and any person
| mentioning "heritability" outside of a wheat breeding lab,
| shuffled off to some discipline less catastrophically detrimental
| to social policy.
| mucle6 wrote:
| Can you share some resources or topics to research for someone
| who doesn't know what a weak effect or co-linearity?
|
| If I google those topics, I don't know if I'll find anything
| relating to a criticism of this field.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Specifically for the area mentioned:
| https://gwern.net/doc/genetics/heritable/2015-burt.pdf
|
| But if you want a general criticism of these academic linear
| methods of observational analysis:
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488
| mucle6 wrote:
| Didn't expect to see statistical consequences of fat tails!
| I bought that book and it was soooooo dense. I had trouble
| keeping up with it even after rereading it. Its basically a
| textbook
| mjburgess wrote:
| Read the chapter, "a non-technical overview - the darwin
| college lecture"
|
| He's quite a bad communicator; that happened to be
| written by students attending his lecture.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You're clearly arguing from the conclusions you want to be
| true.
|
| Nobody who is in the know and actually is skeptical of this
| branch of work (ie. people like Sasha Gusev) thinks it is as
| useless as you are making it out to be.
|
| Adoption studies produce causality and even the GWAS (genome-
| wide association studies) stuff, while not necessarily causal,
| is pretty interesting.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I'm presenting using heritability as an initial toy problem
| area for exploring building PPL/agent-based scenario models.
| I havent yet got to the point of building the model out, but
| it's clear very early on that any observational distribution
| can be reproduced. I will have a more refined view when I've
| done that.
|
| re Sasha Gusev: _disease_ , to some degree, can be studied
| with these methods if you have interventional evidence of a
| genetic cause.
|
| But since all non-genetic factors are almost _obviously_
| mutually interacting, with "compound interest", no
| explanatory model can be fit.
|
| eg., suppose your personality is entirely genetic: then why
| variation? Well, because of gene-environment interactions.
|
| eg., suppose your personality is 0% genetic: when why genetic
| co-variation? Because people's genes covary geographically,
| and due to the trait selection of partners... ie., families
| live in the same geography, and people of similar traits
| breed together.
|
| Why (very weak) correlation with genetic similarity? Because
| "compound interest" applies to the interacting factors, so
| even extremely weak geographical selection will compound.
|
| It is entirely unclear to me how you're meant to discriminate
| between teh infinite family of models on either side.
|
| Certainly, with correlation coefficients of ~.2, you're
| talking about pseudoscience either way. The causes would have
| to be _extremely_ linear for such trivial correlations to
| mean anything at all, and they certainly arent.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I understand your objection and of course you can't just
| naively get causality from observational GWAS. That is
| true.
|
| Your rhetoric does not match the strength of your
| scientific objection. Let's imagine the worst case - these
| studies are absolutely _useless_ for indicating any
| causality whatsoever. _Even then_ , they are still
| extremely useful because they can explain away lots of
| environmental variation in a behavior of interest and
| increase the power of studies of human behavior. That's if
| they are purely non-causal and genetics actually has no
| impact whatsoever on behavior or the brain (a mechanistic
| stretch).
|
| Sorry, but this simply does not match your rhetoric of
| 'pseudoscience' and closing entire fields down.
|
| > Certainly, with correlation coefficients of ~.2, you're
| talking about pseudoscience either way. The causes would
| have to be extremely linear for such trivial correlations
| to mean anything at all, and they certainly arent.
|
| I simply don't agree, but I can tell you won't be convinced
| on this point.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I'm certainly open to speculative _generative_ (,
| explanatory) modelling of human populations to see what
| distributions of variation can be reproduced (indeed,
| that 's what i'm doing). I'm less open to the reverse
| process: starting with observational distributions and
| then just fitting whatever model suits one's prejudices.
|
| There's a cost to the latter when we know, a priori, that
| the "scientists" prior belief about what models to use
| are the most significant factor determining the
| conclusions of the paper; and that we know that the data
| is vastly too weak to distinguish between priors.
|
| Compare the same problem in finance: this sort of linear
| easy-predictability thinking was a major factor in the
| financial crash of 2008; and it's something now widely
| seen with great suspicion amongst the financial
| industry.. who are well aware that "crisis" and "saftey"
| are both consistent with observational data.
|
| I would argue that we live in a world of "pseudo-
| scientific social science disasters", the entire industry
| of measuring people and classifying them is one big
| Science Crisis whose effects practitioners do not care
| about because they aren't the ones being fired and
| loosing all their money (or have rigged these measures to
| benefit themselves).
|
| Against this backdrop of, what ought be, researchers
| "going bust", universities collapsing, and research paper
| stock prices near zero -- i'd claim "pseudoscience" is a
| polite word. Esp. when those who should be long bust are
| still publishing papers immune from their effects on
| society.
| froh wrote:
| > Your rhetoric does not match the strength of your
| scientific objection.
|
| thank you for this way of putting it. made my day.
| em-bee wrote:
| as i mentioned in another comment, what bothers me the most is
| that heritability is used as an excuse for not changing certain
| traits and and as a reason to demand the right to continue bad
| behaviors
| mjburgess wrote:
| Well, remember: heritability of scottish accents is near
| 100%, and heritability of two eyes is near 0%.
|
| Why? The covariance of genes with accent is near 100%: almost
| everyone who speaks scottish interbreeds within the same
| geographical area.
|
| As for eyes: there is almost no variation in the species
| between the number of eyes. Since ~everyone has 2, no genetic
| variation whatsoever discriminates.
|
| The co-variation of a gene with an observable trait is
| irrelevant when vast amounts of cultural (, geographical,
| social, etc.) traits _cause_ (irrelevant) genetic variation.
| So "heritability" is basically nonsense outside of cases
| when the experimenter is actually causing genes to differer
| between populations (it was invented for the case of
| engineering crops).
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Will a kid born to Scottish parents who was separated at
| birth and raised by Chinese parents in China also speak in
| a Scottish accent? Or are you just giving insanely
| strawmannish arguments no one actually presents?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| they're making a (correct) point about causality and
| geographic gene variance
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| No, they are giving an absurd example in order to create
| the implication that heritability is a meaningless
| concept.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Heritability is a population statistic, individuals dont
| have "heritability". So it doesnt apply to any "kid"
| anywhere.
|
| It's a practically useless concept outside of extremely
| narrow fields of biology, where you can control causes or
| otherwise eliminate genetic variation.
|
| In the vast majority of cases where people use
| 'heritability', it is useless. Knowing how much a trait
| varies, or fails to vary, with genes tells you nothing
| about whether its inherited.
|
| Under stable genetic equilibrium near universally
| inherited traits will have a heritability of zero; and
| under cultural, social, geographical etc. selection of
| mates, 0% inherited traits will be arbitrarily close to
| 100% heritability.
|
| It's a statistics designed for cases where the
| experimenter is actually controlling the genetic variance
| (ie., breeding plants) across populations; it's otherwise
| meaningless.
|
| Consider a security guard who forces all past shoplifters
| to wear a tag. Under such an induced causal relationship,
| wearing a red tag becomes predictive of future criminal
| behaviour. Otherwise, it's useless.
|
| Likewise, when an experimenter is _inducing_ genetic
| varience, then it becomes explanatory and predictive;
| otherwise, it 's useless.
| rulalala wrote:
| Is there a good book on the subject? I am curious about the
| evidence and theorisarion of this for interests related to
| myself. As an anecdote, I have a loved adopted cousin that even
| adopted (unconsciously, of course) all our familiar psycho-
| somatic pains.
| nialse wrote:
| This article might be a good starting point. The author
| literally wrote the book on the behavioral genetics. His text
| book is somewhat of a hard read though. The later editions
| might be better though.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9922236/
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Some of the comments here are quite baffling for me to read.
|
| Of course I'm like my parents. I'm completely made up of their
| genetic material and for my formative years I spent almost all of
| my time with them.
|
| I've never considered this to be taboo either, it's bloody
| obvious. Is there some sort of hidden context here I'm not
| getting?
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think maybe they're talking about kids that hated every
| minute of their life while living with their parents, only to
| do the same thing after.
|
| Even if you've lived like that all the time, if you hated it,
| you'd expect someone to do the opposite.
| Xirgil wrote:
| You really don't understand why nature/genetics having a large
| impact on people's personality, thus behavior, and thus life
| outcomes is taboo?
| djeastm wrote:
| They're just saying it seems obvious that a person would be
| like their parents. Nothing more grandiose than that.
| Xirgil wrote:
| And in doing so they mention genetics.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| >I've never considered this to be taboo either, it's bloody
| obvious. Is there some sort of hidden context here I'm not
| getting?
|
| There is. So the problem comes in when you start looking at
| something like say a particular minority racial/ethnic group
| and then picking some statistic that is higher or lower than
| the average over all people and associating that statistic with
| bad outcomes like violent offenses, lack of
| conscientousness/underachievement, etc. So for example, if
| you're saying that violent offenses can be attributed to
| heritable personality traits (rather than
| environmental/circumstantial) in those groups of people, you're
| basically right back to the old and not-so-old eugenic and
| racist arguments about human behavior.
|
| It's likely that there is some effect there, but the question
| is to what extent is that useful information in terms of
| education/discussion or setting policy goals and stuff. Also,
| there is good science to support significant effects of
| environmental factors, so it's not like we're missing a lot.
| (It's not hard to imagine that the same personality trait that
| tends to produce aggression could manifest VERY differently for
| someone raised in an environment where physical violence was
| common and necessary to survive, vs someone upper middle class,
| or someone in the CEO private-school class of people.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I was the one who made the original taboo
| comment and you are simply putting tons of words in my mouth.
|
| There are much simpler, much more solid mechanistically
| scientifically associations that are still taboo to discuss
| that imo have nothing to do with race (race isn't even a real
| thing).
|
| For instance, a common argument I hear is that "standardized
| tests are just testing affluence" because the correlation
| between parental income and standardized test performance is
| so high. It seems pretty obvious to me that there are
| potential heritable confounders there, but I would never feel
| comfortable discussing this publicly.
|
| It's also frustrating because people will strongly implicitly
| weight the evidence by what they _want_ to be true. Anything
| contrary to what they want to be true gets much stricter
| scrutiny than the reverse. For instance, "there is good
| science to support significant effects of environmental
| factors, so it's not like we're missing a lot" is simply not
| an accurate statement of the science. Measurable
| environmental factors don't explain even remotely close to
| everything. A lot (or all of the remaining) could just be
| random variance, but the idea that there just isn't much
| variance left to explain otherwise is absurdly wrong but
| people _want_ it to be true.
| standardUser wrote:
| There is a common right-wing strawman argument that pretends
| people/liberals are unwilling to discuss the impact of genetics
| on human behavior because of potentially uncomfortable
| conclusions that may be drawn about race, gender or other
| inborn traits. That's clearly fueling some of the comments
| you're referring to. That ecosystem of thought tends to be so
| insular that people from within it can sounds incoherent to
| people outside of it.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| I feel this factor plays a huge role in rich/upper middle
| class/upper-class people staying rich or growing richer.
|
| Kids that grow up upper-class imitate their parent's approach to
| work and life in general, giving them an upper-hand.
|
| Many poor kids are very smart and capable but end up imitating
| bad examples early on, making them handicapped.
|
| One of the best things a disadvantaged kid can get is a good role
| model. Doesn't have to be rich...anyone with a stable middle-
| class life to imitate is enough, compared to questionable
| characters some imitate (gun-toting rappers for one).
| giantg2 wrote:
| I generally agree. However, some kids of rich people turn out
| spoiled or lazy.
| darby_eight wrote:
| This implies one's being upper class is a reflection of having
| better habits than the poor, which is incorrect. They just have
| more money. Rich people could not survive poverty.
| anovikov wrote:
| This. I've seen enough people of all walks of life to say:
| the key difference between rich and poor is just that: having
| money. There's nothing wrong with that. Money is morally
| neutral just as the class is.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Some of the richest people I've ever met have middle class or
| upper-middle class appearances. They do make good decisions,
| have good jobs, etc. We see some evidence in studies that
| wealthly grandparents are strong indicators of wealthly adult
| grandchildren. We also know that poor habits deplete wealth
| quickly (like with lotto winners). It seems reasonable at
| least some wealthy people have good habits and that at least
| some of the children adopt those habits and manage to at
| least protect the existing wealth.
| djeastm wrote:
| >We see some evidence in studies that wealthly grandparents
| are strong indicators of wealthly adult grandchildren.
|
| Seems just slightly obvious, though I'm sure the studies
| are more nuanced than this
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, the ones I've seen have looked at things like even
| what type of assest the wealth is in (liquid, securities,
| land, etc). The type of wealth can be a factor in how
| well the wealth is remained.
| darby_eight wrote:
| Liking the aesthetics of fitting in with the proles does
| not mean they could survive
| giantg2 wrote:
| Nothing in my comment was about survival in poverty.
| However, their ability to live within their means seems
| indicative that they have the discipline that they might
| be able do it. In fact, most people can survive in
| poverty - what other choice do they have?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I largely disagree due to social mobility.
|
| If you look at the differences between people who escape
| poverty and those that don't, you will find major differences
| in Habits and capability.
|
| If you look at people who drop in social class and those that
| dont, you will also find differences.
|
| If starting wealth was all that mattered, and human behavior
| had zero impact, you would see no mobility. I guess one could
| chalk mobility up to random luck, but this flies in a the
| face off massive amounts of data correlating performance with
| outcome.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I grew up in poverty, on food stamps. I do somewhat well for
| myself. My wife had a similar childhood.
|
| We have poor financial habits that occasionally hint (I won't
| go so far as to say that they "threaten") at upending our
| lifestyle. Just having "more money" doesn't protect. Our
| habits would, if not kept in check, squander nearly anything.
| We are, in many ways, our own worst enemies. I've struggled
| to recognize this my entire adult life.
|
| I think when someone starts speaking as you just have, it has
| as much to do with social posturing as anything. You have to
| say that, to show everyone else how special and empathetic
| you are. You understand the plight of the poor, that it isn't
| fair and they're "just like anyone else". That if some
| windfall dropped into their laps, they too would be rich
| forever, because that's how wealth works. And when you do
| this, you see everyone clapping and murmuring to each other
| about how enlightened you are, and you get off on that.
|
| There are better habits. The wealthy tend to have more of
| them (many more), and the poor never develop those at all.
| Mostly, I think, because if they have these habits for any
| length of time, it quickly becomes incorrect to refer to them
| as poor. These habits can't protect against all misfortunes,
| but they protect against some and they mitigate the rest. And
| when you teach people that these things aren't true, you're
| doing them a disservice. You're robbing them of the one thing
| that might change their lives. It's both bizarre and cruel.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >It's both bizarre and cruel.
|
| Yep, it seems like so many people are happy to tell
| children that their efforts and choices don't matter
| because everything is luck, and moreover, if they do try,
| they are a fool.
|
| Cruel and tragic, especially when it comes from people who
| claim to be helping.
| feoren wrote:
| Both can be true, if growing up with more money is a causal
| factor in having "better" habits (in terms of wealth
| generation/retention). I also agree that many rich people
| could not survive poverty. Both are adapted to their
| situations.
|
| The problem is that this makes it harder to bring people out
| of poverty, because you're trying to pull them into a
| situation they're less adapted for. I actually am in favor of
| simply giving the poor (/everyone) money (e.g. basic income),
| but even I acknowledge that poverty-formed habits are going
| to be a barrier in that strategy's effectiveness.
|
| We're not trying to pull rich people into poverty, so the
| fact that they wouldn't fare well there is moot.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| What would cause them to not _survive_ poverty? would they
| all commit suicide or spontaneously combust?
|
| Avoiding death is a pretty strong force for adaptation to
| new circumstances.
| feoren wrote:
| Alcoholism, drug addiction, dying on the street on a cold
| night, lack of proper healthcare, and yes, suicide. I
| didn't think it'd be controversial to suggest that
| poverty can kill. And you're taking a strict definition
| of "survive" -- plenty of people talk about "not being
| able to survive" some situation if they think it would be
| extremely difficult and take a permanent toll on them,
| even if they might not literally die.
|
| Honestly it's a completely moot point anyway, as I said:
| nobody is trying to pull rich people into poverty, so it
| doesn't matter how they'd fare.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I just think it odd that you predict their "survival"
| rate will be lower than those born poor.
|
| I think it goes without saying that it would be a rough
| transition if you swapped two people. I expect the long
| term outcome would be better for a rich person swapped
| into poverty, than if the poor person who stayed.
|
| I think this because they statistically and
| experientially I think they have more of the skills
| necessary to escape poverty: education, trades, social
| coding, ect.
|
| You see this often with immigrants to the US, and is
| especially pronounced in the works of Raj Chetty and Ran
| Abramitzky.
|
| When you take someone successful in one country and have
| them start over poor in another. The immigrants do better
| over the course of their lives, and the children of poor
| immigrants do FAR better than the children of native born
| poor.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Streets-Gold-Americas-Immigrant-
| Succe...
| caeril wrote:
| Wealth is correlated with conscientiousness.
|
| Conscientiousness is partially heritable.
|
| The bankruptcy rate for former NFL/NBA/Music superstars and
| lottery winners is _significantly_ higher than that of trust
| fund babies.
|
| Make of that what you want.
| NetBeck wrote:
| >It is estimated that 70% of wealthy families will lose their
| wealth by the second generation and 90% will lose it by the
| third.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-
| wealth%3A-why-d...
| naveen99 wrote:
| That might have been truer when people were having 6+
| children. With the modern average of 1.5, I doubt more than
| 10% lose their trust funds.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| What's the actual real world evidence on that? Plenty of rich
| European families have been rich for hundreds of years, and
| I'm not talking about royalty. That kind of disproves the
| theory.
|
| The ones who go broke fast are usually the ones who also got
| rich fast, trough luck instead of work or knowledge, like
| from lottery wins or speculations.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| Comparing American generational accumulation to the olden
| European social quasi-caste system is a little
| disingenuous.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Where did you see me compare it to Americans?
|
| I'm from Europe so my knowledge revolves around local
| examples.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There is a lot of real world socioeconomic data on it.
| studies usually look at the population in terms of 20 or
| 25% segments. That doesn't mean it is true for the 1% or
| 0.1%. That said, there are lots of examples of people
| entering and leaving the top 1% too, so outcome isn't
| perfectly deterministic.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Actually, real world socioeconomic data on familial
| wealth holdings is incredibly hard to come by.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Wealth is hard to come by, but income is much more
| available.
|
| Some countries have publicly available data on individual
| income filings. The US provides anonymized data, but
| scienentist have done a lot of fancy tricks to make the
| family connections clear.
|
| Raj Chetty among others have done a lot of work on US
| social mobility[1]. They were able to trend parent/child
| incomes in the US going back to 1940, and have tons of
| great insights.
|
| I dont remember all of the findings off the top of my
| head, but one was that relative social mobility (%s) for
| the US have been constant over time. Another was that
| economic mobility out of the bottom classes is dominated
| by poor immigrants. It is unclear if it is genetic,
| personality, or culture, but children of poor immigrants
| out perform native born poor by an enormous factor (2-3X
| better IIRC)
|
| https://www.econtalk.org/raj-chetty-on-economic-mobility/
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Wealth is hard to come by, but income is much more
| available. _
|
| Income is a completely different thing than wealth and
| those two are not always directly correlated. You can
| have a good income but not accumulate much wealth because
| all is bein eaten away by taxes and a high CoL, and you
| can also have a low income but still decent wealth from
| an inheritance for example.
|
| And the original claim was that wealth gets lost between
| generations by the majority of people which I find
| dubious.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think that as a practical matter, they are extremely
| correlated. Wealth sitting in cash loses half its value
| every 20 years. Physical assets require upkeep and
| property taxes.
|
| In practice, if you aren't making income, you losing
| wealth.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Wealth sitting in cash loses half its value every 20
| years. _
|
| By wealth, people tend to mean assets, not petty cash
| sitting in checking accounts. If you're sitting on
| inherited assets you're accumulating more wealth by just
| sitting on your ass without doing anything.
|
| Just see the post-2009 monetary polices: from housing to
| stocks, everything went up like crazy, especially during
| COvid. You didn't have to be financially literate, all
| you had to do was sit on your inherited assets and not
| touch them and the government's money printer did the
| work for you in the last 10+ years.
|
| So forgive me but I still see no proof that 72% people
| loose their wealth between generations, when everything
| went up up up in the last decades, especially housing.
| Unless that wealth we're talking about was an old carpet
| and $600 bucks in a checking account.
|
| _> Physical assets require upkeep and property taxes._
|
| N'ah bruh. Stocks or empty land in desirable areas
| requires no upkeep and wealth taxes in some EU countries
| range from laughable to zero, while income taxes in those
| same countries hover around 50%. Go ahead, tell me more
| how income is the same thing with wealth.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It seems like you didn't read the whole post. If anyone
| ever sells those assets, they are counted as income.
|
| The vast majority of wealth isn't empty houses, ever
| rented, and never sold.
| froh wrote:
| the top 1% is people we all know.
|
| the interesting groups are the top .1% and .01%. there
| isn't that much fluctuation at that layer.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You said we don't know but claim to know. Which is it?
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| It's complicated. Not all wealth is public. Only the
| wealth of the individuals who's wealth is tied to
| publicly traded companies: Musk, Bezos, Zuck, etc.
|
| But we also have all those royal families from Europe and
| the Middle East, dictators like Putin, etc. whos' wealth
| are secret and very well hidden through crown estates,
| trusts, shell companies, all through Caribbean off-shores
| and often under different names. The best you have for
| those people is guestimations and some leaks from the
| Panam Papers to get an idea.
| dom2 wrote:
| This isn't a real statistic, it's an advertisement for wealth
| management.
| detourdog wrote:
| I usually see this statistic about family businesses. In
| the USA a family business passing through 3 generations is
| rare.
|
| My personal observation is that the 4 generation has so
| many better options than the family business is holding
| them back with responsibility and the family unity has
| broken down through generational grudges.
| dexwiz wrote:
| Are all decedents rich, or just a small fraction? Even if a
| family line has been continued for hundreds of years, there
| may be hundreds or even thousands of decedents of the
| original members who do not have access to the line of
| wealth. Also many families stay wealthy by only marrying
| members of other wealthy families. Marrying outside of the
| ruling class results in rapid dilution of power.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| We do not have anywhere near the quality of data about
| familial wealth holdings to say anything of the sort
| anovikov wrote:
| I'd say having a "stable middle-class" parent is the worst
| starting point to become rich. It's a sure way to become a
| similarly boring middle-middle class person - that is, a
| strictly conformist, risk-averse, boot-licking serf.
|
| Kid of a rich person will probably become rich because they
| inherit cash. Kid of a poor person may become rich because they
| are ready to take risk and usually have good social skills.
| That, or they may die trying or end up in prison... But there's
| no good pathway to become rich if you come from a boring
| middle-middle-class. Too little money for elite uni or other
| ways to "hack" it, too little money for risk taking ("starting
| a startup because you always have something to fall back on"),
| and inherited attitude against risk-taking. Dead end. You just
| take up a mediocre white collar job and count years till
| retirement.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This isn't supported by data, of people in the middle income
| quintile 23.3% of their children end up in the top quintile
| while only 9.3% of people from the bottom quintile make it to
| the top[1]. The fourth and fifth(top) quintiles of income
| lead to the highest rates of children entering the top
| quintile.
|
| [1] https://www.cato.org/commentary/upward-mobility-alive-
| well-a...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This is simplified in the aphorism "you are the company you
| keep".
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Totally agree. When I grew up, I was friends with the son of
| the richest family in town. I was once invited to dinner with
| them and was totally shocked they had real conversations. My
| family had a stable income and house but my interactions with
| my dad were basically him ranting about somebody else or me. I
| don't recall any productive conversation I ever had with him.
| Even now in my 50s I still struggle to have conversations and
| constantly have to watch not to talk like my dad. On the other
| hand I also took on a lot of good traits of my parents like
| financial responsibility.
|
| My sister always had a better relationship with her kids and
| they have way better social skills than me or my sisters.
|
| Examples or mentors can have a huge influence on people,
| especially when they are young. Some are good, some are bad.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| I can anecdotally confirm that my kids are a blend between my
| wife and I, with my daughter currently closer to me and my son
| closer to her. I assume this will swap as they age into adults.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Why would you assume it would swap? I have found that major
| personality traits generally persist throughout life.
|
| I was like my dad when I was a little girl, and I am still like
| him now in middle age (probably even more so now even than when
| I was young). Meanwhile, my sister has always been more like
| our mom.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I know there are studies on cloned dogs to determine if their
| personality is mostly genetically-based or environmental, with
| conclusions to the former. Here is one I found:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6167335/
| trallnag wrote:
| Isn't this obvious? It is very obvious to me
| jl6 wrote:
| The paper references the ancient proverb "like father, like
| son". I think it's been obvious for millennia that humans
| aren't born as blank slates.
| heyjamesknight wrote:
| The reproducibility crisis and general decay of academia has
| given us a few decades of bad science. Entire fields have been
| built using massaged statistics to deny common sense in the
| pursuit of tenure.
|
| We're just now "unlearning" much of this, especially in the
| social sciences.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Why would we be "unlearning" anything now? It doesn't make
| sense. What changed? Are academicians not monetarily awarded
| for attention-grabbing and breakthrough-sounding research
| anymore?
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