New research shows links between environmental and hereditary influences and the mental ability of toddlers
Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz Galileo
"Who is mother's genius?" Everyone wants their baby to be intelligent and grow up to be a smart person. What has more influence on a baby's mental ability, heredity factors or the environment in which the baby grows up? Today it is clear that the answer to this question is not dichotomous, but that the interaction between hereditary factors and environmental factors is the influencing factor.
Furthermore, the environment in which the baby grows up, and especially the socioeconomic level of the family (Socioeconomic Status; SES), plays a decisive role in the question of whether and how the genes related to cognitive ability will be expressed during the years in which the child grows and develops. However, from previous studies conducted it is still not clear exactly when, during childhood, this interaction between genes and socioeconomic status begins to have an effect.
The youngest age for which there is research evidence for the effect of the interaction between genes and socioeconomic status is seven years. It is understood that parents with a high socioeconomic status can provide children aged seven and older with a higher level of education (school, classes, private tutors, etc.), but it is clear that in infancy the socioeconomic level of the family has an effect on the types of experiences to which infants and toddlers will be exposed, and even on the degree of attention The heart that babies will receive from their parents.
For example, in one of the previous studies it was found that parents from a low socioeconomic status spend less time with their children and cannot adjust their time allocation to the developmental needs of the toddler.
The king's son and the poor man's son
It is possible that the influence that socioeconomic status has on the exploitation of children's genetic potential will be manifested long before the age of seven and even in infancy; This is in light of the many differences in the experiences of babies and toddlers of parents from low socioeconomic status compared to the experiences of babies and toddlers of parents of high socioeconomic status.
This hypothesis was tested by a team of researchers led by Elliott Tucker-Drove through a longitudinal study published in the journal Psychological Science. 750 pairs of twins (about a quarter of them identical twins) who were born in 2001 in the United States, and who were a representative sample of babies born there that year, participated in the study. Parents from a wide variety of origin, place of residence and income levels participated in the sample.
The twins were tested twice: the first time when they were ten months old, and the second time when they were two years old. On both occasions, psychological tests accepted for babies and toddlers were used to examine a variety of cognitive and motor abilities of the twins (for example repeating syllables, matching pictures, sorting beads by color, etc.). The calculation of the parents' socioeconomic status is done by creating an index that includes the father's education level, the mother's education level, the father's occupation, the mother's occupation and the family's income.
Environmental or genetic influence?
Some interesting findings emerge from the analysis of the research results. First, it was found that socioeconomic status is not related to mental ability at the age of ten months: on the other hand, it was found to be related to the mental ability between the ages of ten months and two years. Secondly, it was found that at the population level, genes began to influence the development of mental abilities between the ages of ten months and two years.
This was tested using a mathematical model based on two theoretical assumptions. The first is that since identical twins share the same genes, then the effect of the genes on the cognitive development of each of the two twins should be the same. In contrast, for non-identical twins who share only fifty percent of the genes, the effect should be correlated but not identical.
The second assumption is that the environmental impact on twins - whether they are identical or non-identical twins - will be the same. Building a mathematical model that expressed these relationships allows us to identify the part of the genes and the part of the environment in explaining cognitive development.
Finally, the degree to which genes influenced the development of mental abilities differed according to socioeconomic status, so that at the age of two, genetic effects on mental ability were higher among children who grew up in homes of high socioeconomic status compared to children who grew up in homes of low socioeconomic status. In other words, the high socioeconomic status of the environment in which the child grew up helped bring out genes related to cognitive ability, and vice versa. The low socioeconomic status of the environment in which the child grew up suppressed the full expression of genes associated with high cognitive ability.
The findings of the present study do not coincide with claims of researchers from an old school in the field of developmental psychology. For example, Bornstein and Sigman, who hold the extreme position that early childhood has no effect at all or only a small effect on cognitive development, and that the effect of neglect in early childhood is also negligible (as long as it is corrected later). On the other hand, the findings of the current study are in line with extensive research literature that emphasizes the importance and the great impact that early childhood experiences have on cognitive development.
Furthermore, in recent years there are even researchers, such as the winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics James Heckman, who claim that from an economic point of view there is great economic value in nurturing children of low socioeconomic status already at an early age, and that there is room to intervene and enrich children These are cognitive enrichment as early as possible.
Miriam Dishon-Berkowitz is a psychologist, an organizational and marketing consultant and a lecturer at the Ono Academic College
for further reading
Bornstein, MH, & Sigman, MD (1986). Continuity in mental development
from childhood. Child Development, 57, 251−274.
Heckman, James J. (2006). Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children. Science, 312(5782), 1900−1902.
Tucker-Drob, EM, Rhemtulla, M., Harden, KP, Turkheimer, E., & Fask, D. (2011). Emergence of a gene-by-socioeconomic status interaction on infant mental ability between 10 months to 2 years. Psychological Science, 22, 125−133.
The full article was published in Galileo magazine, May 2011
12 תגובות
point:
Since you contradict almost every word I can't be impressed by your words.
Define what is meant by the word "status" and show that there is a connection between what is meant by the word "status" and what is meant by the phrase "mental ability".
The fact that you oppose these words does not belong to the topic of the article.
Schmitz:
I assume you're joking (because otherwise I'd have to assume you're wrong).
Status - status, where from?
In ancient Rome, it was a common practice that the more statues you had in the courtyard of a villa, the higher status you were considered. From there the word dangled into modern English.
Michael I object to the use of the word "status" which indicates the existence of objective status versus objective inferiority. And that's bullshit. Obviously there are differences between people and some are better at X than the other. But no such advantage, even if it is based on genes, gives him the attribute of being of a higher status.
Whoever earns more, may be a bigger pig. And someone who is more educated may be a bigger fanatic. Whether it's true or not. There is still no superiority or inferiority in this ability or in any other disability.
My objection is the apparently "innocent" use of words that imply and determine positions as if they were objective.
point:
You have the right, of course, to think what you want, but in the article it is written exactly that "the calculation of the socioeconomic status of the parents is done by creating an index that includes the father's level of education, the mother's level of education, the father's occupation, the mother's occupation and the family's income."
You can, of course, argue that it does not represent anything, but then you will have to explain how it is that "nothing" is highly correlated with the effect of genes on mental ability.
Knowing you, I'm guessing that you might try to avoid the answer by claiming that mental ability is also nothing, but then the question will arise as to how there is a high correlation between nothing A and nothing B
My opinion is very simple. "Status" is a primitive concept that most researchers, the children of the academy, invested all their energy in order to gain such childish statuses, and due to effects of cognitive dissonance it is difficult for them to dismiss the primitive parts of them, and the solution is to define in all kinds of stupid definitions a concept that has nothing to do with the attributes in the definitions.
Class is a primitive social concept like master/slave that comes to describe as if that person with "income/education/intellect" higher than his friend has something superior to the other inferior to him.
to the point
I found a definition by Sharon Neprestak-Zemler, from an article related to 'socio-economic status, learning abilities and brain'.
"...socio-economic status is a multidimensional concept whose definition is complex and controversial, but most researchers agree that it can be defined according to income, occupation, education and their combination (Adler & Newman, 2002; Braveman, Cubbin & Egerter, 2005; Hackman & Farah, 2009; Hollingshead, 1975).
Income: The level of income affects different dimensions of an individual's life - starting with the purchase of health and nutrition services, for housing services and ending with the purchase of education and enrichment activities. Among the variables that predict success, it was found that the average income of the parents most strongly predicts the number of years of education of the child, especially in families from a low socioeconomic status (Duncan et al., 1998).
Education: Education is a key variable in socio-economic status because it shapes employment opportunities and therefore a person's potential income (Adler & Newman, 2002; Hollingshead, 1975). The concept of "education" includes the person's years of schooling, but in recent years there has also been an emphasis on education in early, pre-school stages, a concept that led to the development of intervention programs in kindergartens (Diamond, Barnett, Thomas & Murno, 2007).
Trade: One important aspect of a trade is the very existence of employment. Children of unemployed parents suffer not only from lower educational opportunities but also from lower level health services (Adler & Newman, 2002). In the labor market, professions that belong to the blue collar field expose the workers to physical (such as exposure to dangerous substances) and psychosocial risks (such as the lack of control over the terms of employment and attraction).
... "
What do you think?
So stay smart. This is the dumbest advice I can give you.
Learn? According to what I know, to understand the meaning of the term "class" you have to be an idiot.
point
I can only recommend that you go study sociology (and maybe combine it with economics classes as well).
Successfully.
This still does not explain the word class.
"Economic level" I can understand that it can be defined according to the calculation of the monthly salary that he received in the bank as a result of his work. Then you can take into account this number that appears in the bank to define all kinds of scales (investment scale, pig scale, scale of economic wisdom, scale of materialistic greed, etc., etc. you can define any scale you want).
But I didn't understand what the "social level" is? What is? The number of friends that person has? Maybe his average height?
I'm confused.
point
Lifting to put down... but I'll hold back 🙂
Status is 'status' in Polish. In the context of the article, it means socio-economic status (or in Lez: socio-economic). That is, the place where a certain population segment is located (in terms of economic and social level) in relation to other segments of the same population.
What is class?