How we inherit little of our personality from our parents
THE phrase ‘like father, like son’ suggests that children might inherit some of their personality from their parents – alongside their looks.
But there may be little truth in this, as a study has found that people are only marginally more likely to share personality traits with their parents than they are with a stranger.
It is ‘impossible to accurately predict a child’s personality traits from those of their mother or father’, researchers claim.
Report author Dr Rene Mottus, from the University of Edinburgh, told the Mail: ‘ In almost every language, there is a form of the English proverb “like father, like son”. Many people believe this and sometimes make judgements about people based on their parents.
‘But it turns out this proverb is not very accurate when it comes to personality traits – our patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
‘There is only a small chance that people are more similar to their parents than to any stranger.’
Working with experts at the University of Tartu in Estonia, researchers used data from the Estonian Biobank – a collection of health information from volunteers in the country.
More than 1,000 pairs of relatives were recruited for the study, including parents and their adult children, siblings, and other pairs of family members.
The participants self-reported their levels of various character traits, including how neurotic, extroverted, conscientious, open and agreeable they were. These traits are referred to as ‘the big five’ and they are often used by psychologists when conducting personality studies.
The pairs of relatives were also asked to report how satisfied they were with their own lives. To improve the accuracy of the results, researchers got a second opinion from an ‘informant’ – usually the person’s partner.
‘Self-ratings alone are not very trustworthy, but when two people agree on someone’s traits, they must be on to something,’ Dr Mottus explained.
The results showed that the likelihood of inheriting personality traits and life satisfaction is around 40 per cent.
This is an increase on the 25 per cent that had typically been found in previous studies involving self-reporting.
Statistically, this figure is still not high enough to suggest that we are any more likely to share personality traits with our parents than we are with a stranger.
‘No more similar than strangers’