Prepare to have your notions of nature vs. nurture thoroughly examined as we navigate the intricate web of genetics, environment, and well-being. What is more impactful than parent influence on children’s development?

David Myers is a professor at Hope College and the author of many books, including Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith, How Do We Know Ourselves?: Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind, and The Pursuit of Happiness: Discovering the Pathway to Fulfillment, Well-Being, and Enduring Personal Joy.

David and Greg discuss the captivating terrain of psychology's overlap with philosophy. The transformative power of active educational engagement. We also delve into the 'religion factor' in personal happiness, contemplating whether secular institutions can replicate the community and meaning often found in religious congregations. David also explains the delicate balance between intuition and analytical thinking, inspired by an amusing interaction with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

The science of happiness

9:31: Most people say they're pretty happy; three in ten Americans say they're very happy; six in ten say they're pretty happy; only one in ten say they're not very happy. But what does that really mean? Well, it turns out that people that say they're very happy or that describe their life as deeply satisfying rather than unsatisfied, in fact, they look happier to other people. They smile and laugh more. Their friends rate them as happier. They're less vulnerable to disabling depression, and so forth. So, I think there is a lot of evidence that those subjective well-being measurements by which people assess their own happiness and life satisfaction have validity. And they're connected to other things that are also indicators of well-being. And that's why we have a science of happiness and a whole field of positive psychology now.

Impact of religion on one’s well-being

10:37: We know that actively religious people who worship regularly with a faith community are much likelier to say they're very happy than are people who are religiously disengaged. These people are connected to other people in a communal experience where there's mutual support. Religion is also a meaning system, and people who live with a sense of meaning and purpose in life report greater happiness than others.

A shocking finding on the effect of parental nurture on children’s development

16:27: Behavior genetics research has also had an even more spectacularly shocking finding: the effect of parental nurture on children's developing traits, such as their intelligence and personalities, is, assuming we're within the normal range of parental variation, excluding abuse and neglect. Parental nurture is a surprisingly small variable. Parental nurture matters for values, politics, and the religious faith of children as they're growing up, but their basic traits are not much influenced by parental nurture. What does matter more than we've calibrated in the past is peer influence. Particularly as kids grow up into middle and high schoolers. They're really much more attuned to and adapting themselves to the ideas and the lifestyles and so forth of their peers than they are of their parents.

Do genetic factors play a role in one's personality, subjective well being and, and social factors?

13:17: I would say that I have been amazed by the results of behavioral genetic studies, which we now have on many millions of twins, for example, both fraternal and identical twins, and also comparing biological and adoptive siblings with their biological and adoptive parents. About 50 percent of the person-to-person variation in various important traits, like intelligence, extroversion, and even physical characteristics—psychological trait characteristics—are especially attributable to genetic differences. Note that that doesn't mean that 50 percent of my intelligence, yours, or your extraversion is attributable to genes. You are 100 percent the product of your genes in your environment. However, if we want to understand individual variation, the differences among individuals, genes are very important.

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