Tuesday, May 06, 2025

Nature, Nurture, Nonshared

I write about these things from time to time, but mostly just to hammer home one point: Shared environment, the part that we call "nurture" in the equation, is wildly overrated in the popular imagination in terms of cognitive tasks. This is a good refinement of that idea.  Nurture IS 20-30% of the total in childhood.  But nature, and unshared environment (who you best friend is, whether you fall in love with WWI in 5th grade, a magazine brought home on a whim by your dad) cover the waterfront by adulthood. Nurture has dropped to unmeasurable.

Nature, nurture and nonshared environment in cognitive development

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