Your parents’ upbringing has not been decisive for your personality. Studies on twins and adopted children show that chance has a greater influence on our personality than the parenting we grow up in. If our parents do not expose us to abuse, violence or other negative parenting, it is above all the rest of our upbringing that makes us who we are .
– The most important thing you can do as a parent is to relax and find out what the children are good at and want to do. Not what you want them to be, says Robert Plomin, professor of genetics in SVT’s new series Your personality.
50 percent genetic
However, your parents have another influence, as 50 percent of our personality is genetic. Robert Plomin has devoted his entire professional life to studying how our genes affect our personality. He believes that some twin studies show that twin pairs can become more alike when they grow up in different families.
– It could be because twins find it strange to have a cloned copy of themselves. So you solve that dilemma by distancing yourself from each other. “If you are the athlete, I intend to be the actor”. They are deliberately trying to become more different, says Robert Plomin.
Watch the psychology professor talk about how your personality is formed in the clip above.
See Your personality in SVT Play or on SVT1 Tuesday at 8 p.m. What type of personality do you have? Take the test in the Duo app.