14 DAY TRIAL // All people go through ups and downs during their lives, but after important events subside, all individuals revert to a set point, a baseline emotions state, if you will. This determines hot content or uneasy that individual's mind is, but what determines this point has thus far been unknown.
Some have proposed that genetic plays the most important role in determining set points, whereas other researchers argue that the environment (nurture) is largely responsible for how a person will turn out, and what moods they will be in as a baseline.
Thus far, the international psychiatric and psychological communities have largely agreed that genetic factors were more likely to influence the set points. But the role of nurture must not be neglected at all, other scientists warn.
“We know that extreme environmental adversities, such as abuse in childhood or wartime trauma, have a long-term impact on people,” explains Kenneth S. Kendler, who holds an appointment as a psychiatrist at the Virginia Commonwealth University.
The expert focused his research on determining how environmental factors changed these set points for patients who suffered from anxiety and depression. These people tend to revert to grimmer set points than healthy individuals.
A clear causal correlation was discovered, the expert writes in a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science. The journal is edited by the Association for Psychological Science.
When it comes to anxiety and depression, the study uncovered, environmental factors play a more important role than genes do. The meta-analysis included nine datasets from longitudinal twin studies.
Data on a total of 12,000+ twins were included in the data. The 4,235 pairs and 3,678 unpaired twins were selected from three continents. The work was carried out on identical twins because they have the exact same gene.
This means that researchers can tease out which influences are caused by nature, and which by nurture, PsychCentral reports.
“Environmental experiences have a memory and stay with us. What governs the emotional set point of adults is a mixture of genetic factors and the total aggregate of environmental experiences,” Kendler says, adding that the study has implications beyond anxiety and depression.