It’s not all genetics
bythemethod | March 18, 2008A study conducted on 346 19-month-old twins by an international team led by Université Laval professor of psychology Michel Boivin has shown that while there may be a genetic link to stress how we are brought up has a significant effect on how much genetics is responsibile for how we can cope with stress later in life.
The study shows that, for children growing up in a favorable family environment, genetics account for 40% of the individual differences in cortisol response to unfamiliar situations. Cortisol is a stress hormone produced in new, unpredictable or uncontrollable contexts. In contrast, if children are raised in difficult family circumstances, the environment completely overrides the genetic effect as if it had established a programmed hormonal conditioning to stress.
Genetics is important in a great many things and at the moment it seems that genetics might be responsible for why some people are better at coping with stress than others but it’s not the whole story. The circumstances we face as we grow also has a significant impact on how we cope with stress later.
