# Behavior is directly connected to and reflective of inner experience



## Brains (Jul 22, 2015)

Janna said:


> I'm not claiming that behavior doesn't matter and is unrelated to the personality. But I'm definitely saying that a lot of the things we do stem from necessity, not preference. Some people are better at it than others, but most of us have some skills that enable us to do things that aren't directly linked to our personality.
> 
> Holding on to a job, for instance, would be very difficult for me if I insisted on expressing my feelings of detachment, or if I didn't make an effort to be more agreeable. I'm able to ask people how their weekend went, although I don't personally care. In a big company we also need to follow certain processes and schedules, and I do, even though my preference would be to just wing it. Looking at my behavior at work it would be hard to type me correctly.


You're probably overestimating how much you can mask your core traits - even when you're doing something that's uncommon for people of your character, there's still an affective tone to it that gets through most of the time. An introverted friend in a talkative mood is still observably different from an equivalently talkative extravert, partly because the introvert's more driven by situation-specific factors and the extravert proportionally more by his temperament.

As far as being agreeable goes, it's quite easy to spot the genuinely highly Agreeable people at work from those who are lower on it but still perfectly polite.





Janna said:


> Sure, but still it wouldn't make typing me based on my behavior much easier. But yes, my behavior is related to my personality, and knowing my motivations I could even explain why I do what. It's just that without the explanation from me, others would have a hard time knowing my reasons.





Allin said:


> Same here.
> 
> If behaviors are so DIRECTLY connected, then by that logic as soon as you figure out a person’s type, you can predict how they’ll behave. Hmmm...
> 
> If the OP were to say “loosely connected and blabla...” there would be no arguments here. It’s about the implied degree, it seems.


The thing is, temperament/personality _is_ directly connected to your behavior, it just isn't the sole cause. It's but one contributor alongside situation, past experience, conscious decisions, and so on. But it is a persistent and pervasive one, and has also affected things like the opinions you've come to hold and decisions you've chosen to make.

Personality traits aren't deterministic, they're probabilistic, like a constant, gentle shove at your back or a tug at your sleeve that drags you to the right. Imagine a town where the wind always blows in the same direction. The people can clearly decide to walk any path they choose any time they need to go somewhere, and probably will do so. But if the wind's strong enough you can bet people will eventually settle to walking along the wind when going the direction the wind's blowing, and choosing a more covered path when getting back most of the time.

Or, to put it more technically, here's a professor's more technically worded explanation:



> Personality traits are probabilistic descriptions of relatively stable patterns of emotion, motivation, cognition, and behavior, in response to classes of stimuli that have been present in human cultures over evolutionary time. This definition has at least three important features. First, it equates traits with the tendency to be in certain emotional, motivational, cognitive, and behavioral states. This equation is consistent with the work of Fleeson (2001), who has described traits as "density distributions of states" and has used experience sampling to show that people's average levels of states associated with a given trait are highly stable from week to week and correspond well to trait scores on standard questionnaire assessments of personality (Fleeson & Gallagher, 2009). Regardless of their level of a given trait (corresponding to their stable average), people display behavior corresponding to various different levels of that trait over the course of a day. Thus, traits are probabilistic, and even an error-free measure of them could not perfectly predict behavior at any particular moment. Nonetheless, they may provide substantial predictive power for behavior in aggregate and are better than nothing for predicting even single instances of behavior (as long as the appropriate trait is measured for a given criterion). From a dynamical systems perspective, traits are equivalent to persistent attractor states of the... system; they indicate states toward which the person will tend to gravitate but do not preclude that person from being in other states (Lewis, 2005; Nowak et al., 2005).


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## Janna (Aug 31, 2018)

This is a really interesting topic.

Even if I might be on the "you can't type a person by their behavior alone" camp, I actually agree with a lot of what @Brains is saying. It is likely that when people are going against their core traits, their performance can be somewhat mechanical and not totally convincing. I make a lot of effort to be more Agreeable (with a capital A; it's not necessarily the kind of behavior that I personally find agreeable on other people) than what would come naturally for me, but even after many years of practice I still repeatedly slip up and come off as abrasive and/or indifferent. I have been able to get better at it, but my skill level is still lower than that of others for whom Agreeableness comes naturally.

What I'd like to add to the conversation is the fact that skill level also varies within a personality type. Just because a person is an enneatype Three doesn't mean that they have the skills to successful, or if they're a One it doesn't guarantee that their way is right and the quality they produce is excellent. And just because Feeling is a high priority for somebody, it doesn't make them emotionally intelligent. Having the preference helps, but if everybody had great skills in whatever their personality is motivated by, the world would look very different.

Taking into account both the fact that 1) people use their skills when the situation calls for something that isn't really their core trait, and that 2) even people who are acting on their core trait can still have very different skill levels at various things, I still believe that it's not easy to type people based on their behavior alone. 

If a person most of the time acts very differently than what they claim their personality is, it might be a sign that they just aren't very capable of looking at themselves objectively. But apart from our very closest friends and family, do we really get to see how people act most of the time? I act a certain way at work, where gasps of horror echoed down hallways when it was revealed that I'm a Five and not and Eight like everybody thought. What I'm like with my friends is very different.


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## Allin (Dec 9, 2018)

Janna said:


> This is a really interesting topic.
> 
> Even if I might be on the "you can't type a person by their behavior alone" camp, I actually agree with a lot of what @Brains is saying. It is likely that when people are going against their core traits, their performance can be somewhat mechanical and not totally convincing. I make a lot of effort to be more Agreeable (with a capital A; it's not necessarily the kind of behavior that I personally find agreeable on other people) than what would come naturally for me, but even after many years of practice I still repeatedly slip up and come off as abrasive and/or indifferent. I have been able to get better at it, but my skill level is still lower than that of others for whom Agreeableness comes naturally.
> 
> ...


I agree with you, and just wanted to add to one of your points: “If a person most of the time acts very differently than what they claim their personality is, it might be a sign that they just aren't very capable of looking at themselves objectively.“ I would add that it may also be a sign that their behaviors changed with age and circumstances, preferences changed, so outwards-facing one can look and act like sometimes a 5 and sometimes an 8, while the core ego structure is still built out of the 7 material. This is the case with me, and it took a lot of effort to type me. All or most of my 7 behaviors are in my head, so not visible to the world. On the basic free online tests 8 and 5 come up higher than 7, but if I recall how I was back in college, a lot more 7-like answers would apply.

Especially when it comes to online typing, I think it’s so easy to get it wrong. There are people that type out their thoughts and edit to make sure everything cones out right and represents them correctly, while others (more like me) just type as we think and don’t stop to check what kind of impression we give off and how it may be misconstrued, we forget to care to make a certain impression, yet, some oracles out there think they can just pick a few words out of context here and there, and insist that their “vibes” are correct in typing somebody. I see so many long exchanges like that here and on other forums.

I think there’s nothing wrong with trying to type a person online, and maybe the forum rules should allow unsolicited typing, but with only one caveat: when the one you’re typing says no, you misunderstood, this is not how I am, the one attempting to type should back off. 
All we have to go on is what people share about themselves for one reason or another. So the hope is that people are introspective enough. But even if they’re not, their own self-assessment may be still the best we got to work with, and the only thing to do is guide them if they’re willing, but no insisting.

Enneagram-based or other personality theory-based guidance and offering some type as an option is ok. Insisting on a person’s type is not.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

ElectricSlime said:


> Wisteria said:
> 
> 
> > Not directly related to the thread but you should take developmental psychology into account when it comes to personality. I do think Jungian personality theories are way too focused on putting people in boxes rather than trying to understand how a person becomes who they are. I don't actually study psychology or anything, but I am aware of the attachment theory - it's basically about how your upbringing affects your behaviour and worldview, which includes how social you are, optimism, how anxious you are, self image, your confidence to explore, etc. (here's a video
> ...


Not to mention disorders such as anxiety disorder, depression, mood disorders, personality disorders...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19748081


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Hexcoder said:


> Not to mention disorders such as anxiety disorder, depression, mood disorders, personality disorders...
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19748081


It says in the link that borderline PD shares "genetic variation" with neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, and that there are unique environmental influences or something. Not sure what that means but if any article mentions genetics that does not mean that environmental factors didn't have the affect. Their is a theory called Epigenetics which basically combines social science with hard science and the idea is that the environment will actually change your genetics. 

Also slime mentioned everyday habits affecting your mood - I don't agree that sleeping patterns and poor diet will cause depression/anxiety, i think it's more a result of it. There's a difference between depression and just being a little bit irritable because you haven't gone to sleep early in a while.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

Wisteria said:


> It says in the link that borderline PD shares "genetic variation" with neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, and that there are unique environmental influences or something. Not sure what that means but if any article mentions genetics that does not mean that environmental factors didn't have the affect. Their is a theory called Epigenetics which basically combines social science with hard science and the idea is that the environment will actually change your genetics.


It says, _"Unique environmental effects on borderline personality, however, were not completely shared with those for the FFM traits (33% is unique to borderline personality)."_
I am not sure exactly what those were, but BPD is notoriously _caused_ by an abusive and emotionally invalidating environment (as well as genetics / biological).

[HR][/HR]



Wisteria said:


> Also slime mentioned everyday habits affecting your mood - I don't agree that sleeping patterns and poor diet will cause depression/anxiety, i think it's more a result of it. There's a difference between depression and just being a little bit irritable because you haven't gone to sleep early in a while.


Actually, that was what made me finally get on a regular sleep schedule more consistently. Disrupting the circadian rhythm can even trigger bipolar episodes.



Society for Neuroscience said:


> Sleep disruptions are associated with many brain disorders, including anxiety, dementias, and traumatic brain injury. *While these disruptions are sometimes viewed as a side effect of brain disorders, new findings suggest that aberrant sleep-wake cycles can also drive brain pathology.* The studies were presented at Neuroscience 2018, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
> 
> The brain mechanisms underlying an increase in anxiety among sleep-deprived people, which indicate that deep slow-wave sleep is needed to calm overactive brain regions. (Eti Ben Simon, abstract 192.11).
> 
> ...





Department of Psychiatry said:


> Studies link both environmental and genetic circadian rhythm disruptions with mood disorders. *Disrupting circadian rhythms by shift work or jet lag can worsen or cause mood symptoms [5–7].* Furthermore, seasonal changes in day length can affect mood [8]. In terms of genetic disruptions, many circadian genes have been associated with mood disorders [9–13]. Since treatments that directly target the circadian system are used as therapies for mood disorders (e.g., light and dark therapies, agomelatine, social rhythm therapy, and sleep phase advance), correcting circadian disruptions may stabilize a mood [14–17].
> 
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5694588/


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Hexcoder said:


> It says, _"Unique environmental effects on borderline personality, however, were not completely shared with those for the FFM traits (33% is unique to borderline personality)."_
> I am not sure exactly what those were, but BPD is notoriously _caused_ by an abusive and emotionally invalidating environment (as well as genetics / biological).


Yeah i'm sure it is, that was my point kind of. Environmental causes can be mistaken for a genetic cause. Someone might say for example, anxiety is genetic and runs in the family, but it's simply because the child is learning that behaviour from their parent and it just continues down the generations. This video might explain what i'm getting at, don't have to watch but it might be relevant to the thread topic;








> [HR][/HR]
> 
> Actually, that was what made me finally get on a regular sleep schedule more consistently. Disrupting the circadian rhythm can even trigger bipolar episodes.


I agree that sleep can make mood problems worse, but the causes are more than that.
For you ADD might affect sleep in some way perhaps?


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

Wisteria said:


> Yeah i'm sure it is, that was my point kind of. Environmental causes can be mistaken for a genetic cause. Someone might say for example, anxiety is genetic and runs in the family, but it's simply because the child is learning that behaviour from their parent and it just continues down the generations. This video might explain what i'm getting at, don't have to watch but it might be relevant to the thread topic;


Thanks, I'll have to read about it some as well. I do partially agree, but the hole in that is that not everyone with the disorder is subjected to those things. Sometimes people have it anyways.



Wisteria said:


> I agree that sleep can make mood problems worse, but the causes are more than that.
> For you ADD might affect sleep in some way perhaps?


It states in those articles that it is also a cause.


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## Brains (Jul 22, 2015)

Wisteria said:


> Someone might say for example, anxiety is genetic and runs in the family, but it's simply because the child is learning that behaviour from their parent and it just continues down the generations.


When claims like these are made by scientists, they're usually backed by something a bit more sophisticated, like twin studies which examine similarity between people who have more or less shared genetic material (ie. identical twins should be more similar than dizygotic twins on a trait if there's a genetic influence on it), and by adoption studies where you can compared related people who were separated at birth, especially twins if at all possible. These kinds of studies have been done on anxiety, for example, and anxiety is heritable: More closely related people tend to be closer in their levels of anxiety and adoptees resemble their biological family more than their adoptive one. Unrelated people adopted into the same family might as well be perfect strangers where their personality is concerned: Being raised in the same family doesn't make people more similar to each other except for specific situational adaptations.


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Brains said:


> When claims like these are made by scientists, they're usually backed by something a bit more sophisticated, like twin studies which examine similarity between people who have more or less shared genetic material (ie. identical twins should be more similar than dizygotic twins on a trait if there's a genetic influence on it), and by adoption studies where you can compared related people who were separated at birth, especially twins if at all possible. These kinds of studies have been done on anxiety, for example, and anxiety is heritable: More closely related people tend to be closer in their levels of anxiety and adoptees resemble their biological family more than their adoptive one. Unrelated people adopted into the same family might as well be perfect strangers where their personality is concerned: Being raised in the same family doesn't make people more similar to each other except for specific situational adaptations.


Aren't there also studies which show that identical twins can turn out completely differently if they have separate lives? How do you know that every study has been backed up by an identical twin study? If it's not mentioned in the journal or article it probably wasn't controlled by a twin study. 

Apparently the triplets from the three identical strangers story all suffered mental health problems despite growing up in different types of families, but a lot of people seem to conclude that it was separation anxiety, including themselves. (Three identical strangers was an experiment done the last century where triplets were separated at birth into different working class families) One of the triplets actually committed suicide and had a bad relationship with the father who adopted him. I don't know how true all those facts are because they're only things I've heard and read, but they weren't exactly the same and had conflicts after they met each other. 

I have no idea what you mean by specific situational adaptions. But I don't like the claims that everything is genetic because it's not. I've seen so many people online who have mental health issues and a history of abuse. No one gets mental health problems for no reason, even if they may be naturally susceptible to it and have a family history. Look into any celebrity who has died by suicide or overdose, and you will notice the trends in their early life - parents divorce, a neglectful parent, domestic or sexual abuse, and substance abuse.


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## Brains (Jul 22, 2015)

Wisteria said:


> Aren't there also studies which show that identical twins can turn out completely differently if they have separate lives? How do you know that every study has been backed up by an identical twin study? If it's not mentioned in the journal or article it probably wasn't controlled by a twin study.
> 
> Apparently the triplets from the three identical strangers story all suffered mental health problems despite growing up in different types of families, but a lot of people seem to conclude that it was separation anxiety, including themselves. (Three identical strangers was an experiment done the last century where triplets were separated at birth into different working class families) One of the triplets actually committed suicide and had a bad relationship with the father who adopted him. I don't know how true all those facts are because they're only things I've heard and read, but they weren't exactly the same and had conflicts after they met each other.
> 
> I have no idea what you mean by specific situational adaptions. But I don't like the claims that everything is genetic because it's not. I've seen so many people online who have mental health issues and a history of abuse. No one gets mental health problems for no reason, even if they may be naturally susceptible to it and have a family history. Look into any celebrity who has died by suicide or overdose, and you will notice the trends in their early life - parents divorce, a neglectful parent, domestic or sexual abuse, and substance abuse.


Twins separated early in life is the gold standard way to get those heritability estimates. There are also less stringent ways where you compare different degrees of relatedness and related people who were raised apart, and all point to the same direction: There is a genetic component to things like dispositional anxiety, usually amounting to about ~40-60% of differences between people. 

I didn't claim everything is genetic - most things have a genetic _component_, but even very highly heritable traits, such as intelligence differences between high-SES people (who tend to avoid a series of environmental/parenting issues that are known to cause troubles in cognitive development) have a small environmental component to them. It's a mix on nearly everything, but behavior genetic studies consistently point to the family environment having relatively little ability to make children more similar to each other or their parents - adoptees resemble their biological family more than their adoptive one, two unrelated children raised in the same family might as well be strangers, and so on.

This obviously pertains to a relatively normal family environment - severely traumatic ones are a completely different animal.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

Wisteria said:


> Aren't there also studies which show that identical twins can turn out completely differently if they have separate lives? How do you know that every study has been backed up by an identical twin study? If it's not mentioned in the journal or article it probably wasn't controlled by a twin study.
> 
> Apparently the triplets from the three identical strangers story all suffered mental health problems despite growing up in different types of families, but a lot of people seem to conclude that it was separation anxiety, including themselves. (Three identical strangers was an experiment done the last century where triplets were separated at birth into different working class families) One of the triplets actually committed suicide and had a bad relationship with the father who adopted him. I don't know how true all those facts are because they're only things I've heard and read, but they weren't exactly the same and had conflicts after they met each other.
> 
> I have no idea what you mean by specific situational adaptions. But I don't like the claims that everything is genetic because it's not. I've seen so many people online who have mental health issues and a history of abuse. No one gets mental health problems for no reason, even if they may be naturally susceptible to it and have a family history. Look into any celebrity who has died by suicide or overdose, and you will notice the trends in their early life - parents divorce, a neglectful parent, domestic or sexual abuse, and substance abuse.


Though prenatal Mozart has not been proven to boost IQ, the day-to-day stimulations of a nurturing, interesting, stable home life most certainly can sculpt the circuitry of the brain. Reading, singing, showing colorful pictures to a child—and especially talking and cuddling—help shape the child’s development in a very real, neurobiological way. In the parts of the brain that are stimulated, individual neurons flourish like tiny trees, sprouting more of the branches, called dendrites, that allow communication between cells. Neural circuits form, followed by complex networks, allowing the child to flourish in the outside-world social networks of family, friends, school, and community. *The child’s genes provide the framework, but early-life experiences will determine how those genes contribute to the emotional, intellectual, and social life of the child—and to the adult that the child will become.*

*Unfortunately, the same process plays out when the child’s early experiences are not happy ones. The brains of children who suffer neglect or abuse—about 10 out of every 1,000 children in the United States in 2008**1**—also develop in a way that reflects the child’s experiences.* And the effects of early abuse can be notoriously difficult to detect. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, it is difficult to identify an abused child unless there are obvious signs, such as bruises or injuries. The child’s behavior usually provides few clues—in fact, when social workers, doctors, or police officers attempt to rescue a child from an abusive situation, the child will often lie to protect the parents.
It usually takes a skilled therapist with specific diagnostic tools to uncover definite signs of abuse. One method is the Strange Situation Test, in which a caregiver brings a child into a room and then leaves, after which a stranger comes in and attempts to engage the child. Only after repeated rounds of these stressful events—and after the final stage of this test when the child is reunited with his or her mother—will the child finally begin to show signs of “disorganized attachment,” simultaneously showing a need for and a fear of the caregiver.
*Yet by adolescence, some 80 percent of abused children will be diagnosed with major psychiatric illness.* Imaging studies of abuse survivors often show that brain areas controlling emotion and cognition are abnormal, both anatomically (they are generally smaller) and functionally.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574772/


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Brains said:


> Twins separated early in life is the gold standard way to get those heritability estimates. There are also less stringent ways where you compare different degrees of relatedness and related people who were raised apart, and all point to the same direction: There is a genetic component to things like dispositional anxiety, usually amounting to about ~40-60% of differences between people.
> 
> I didn't claim everything is genetic - most things have a genetic _component_, but even very highly heritable traits, such as intelligence differences between high-SES people (who tend to avoid a series of environmental/parenting issues that are known to cause troubles in cognitive development) have a small environmental component to them. It's a mix on nearly everything, but behavior genetic studies consistently point to the family environment having relatively little ability to make children more similar to each other or their parents - adoptees resemble their biological family more than their adoptive one, two unrelated children raised in the same family might as well be strangers, and so on.
> 
> This obviously pertains to a relatively normal family environment - severely traumatic ones are a completely different animal.


Have you actually seen any evidence that an adopted child will be different to the biological one when being raised in the same household? The other thing with twin studies is how do you know environmental factors still aren't affecting them? They've been separated but the environment or whatever is influencing a behaviour/trait might be the same.

This thread started a long time ago so I can't remember if I mentioned this but I'm mainly talking about the neurotic and social traits of a person. This might not be relevant for things like conscientiousness, agreeableness, and the other traits because I haven't actually noticed any theories or articles about that. 

I'm not even talking about a severely traumatic childhood, simply a childhood where the relationship between the child and the parent is not strong or secure. That family environment might be classed as normal. I've yet to meet someone who struggles with mental health issues or relationship problems that has a completely normal and healthy relationship with their family. Maybe some people do, but I haven't seen it myself.


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Hexcoder said:


> Though prenatal Mozart has not been proven to boost IQ, the day-to-day stimulations of a nurturing, interesting, stable home life most certainly can sculpt the circuitry of the brain. Reading, singing, showing colorful pictures to a child—and especially talking and cuddling—help shape the child’s development in a very real, neurobiological way. In the parts of the brain that are stimulated, individual neurons flourish like tiny trees, sprouting more of the branches, called dendrites, that allow communication between cells. Neural circuits form, followed by complex networks, allowing the child to flourish in the outside-world social networks of family, friends, school, and community. *The child’s genes provide the framework, but early-life experiences will determine how those genes contribute to the emotional, intellectual, and social life of the child—and to the adult that the child will become.*
> 
> *Unfortunately, the same process plays out when the child’s early experiences are not happy ones. The brains of children who suffer neglect or abuse—about 10 out of every 1,000 children in the United States in 2008**1**—also develop in a way that reflects the child’s experiences.* And the effects of early abuse can be notoriously difficult to detect. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, it is difficult to identify an abused child unless there are obvious signs, such as bruises or injuries. The child’s behavior usually provides few clues—in fact, when social workers, doctors, or police officers attempt to rescue a child from an abusive situation, the child will often lie to protect the parents.
> It usually takes a skilled therapist with specific diagnostic tools to uncover definite signs of abuse. One method is the Strange Situation Test, in which a caregiver brings a child into a room and then leaves, after which a stranger comes in and attempts to engage the child. Only after repeated rounds of these stressful events—and after the final stage of this test when the child is reunited with his or her mother—will the child finally begin to show signs of “disorganized attachment,” simultaneously showing a need for and a fear of the caregiver.
> ...


That's exactly what i've been trying to say since the beginning of the thread, and it's what the video I posted is about - it mentions a "disorganised attachment" but there are also other categories. The disorganised one is linked with childhood trauma/fear or neglect. And perhaps this child's parents were also like this with their parents, so it can easily be traced down to the resulting behaviours being a genetic, inherited trait.

My point is if someone has been neglected or abused by a parent, raised in an unstable or unpredictable environment, and has not had the support from their parents when it was most needed, they're not exactly going to turn out to be the most emotionally stable social butterflies, forming positive and trusting relationships with others and feel safe in new unfamiliar environments. 

About the neuron networks being generated, I was basically taught that environmental stimulus can caused certain genes to be expressed. Gene expression is basically like activating a gene by switching on an "off" switch. So that happening in the neurons would be the result of that.


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