EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
BG: Nonshared Environment and Psychotherapy
James Brody · 09/29/03 at 10:50 AM ET
"Shared" and "Nonshared" Environments and Psychotherapy(1)
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Monozygotic twins are rarely identical in every respect. Given their presumed genetic identities, environments must, by Galton's logic and that of some modern behavior geneticists, account for those differences. Such environments are called "nonshared" (NSE) because they must have been different for each twin in order to produce different outcomes. Nonshared environments make us different. To the extent that we make our own environments, NSE also allow us to be different, to construct environments that align with our nature. NSE often contributes 40% to the variance in long term outcomes and may, depending on whether you believe environments force conformity or allow differences, may combine with genetic sources of variance to account for as much as 80% of long term outcomes. (NSE also includes on error variance, often as much as 20%.) The spider built his world to the extent allowed by the matchbox. Shared environments (SE) make individuals with dissimilar genes act alike. It can be estimated by comparing children who are not related but who are of the same age and have the same parents and home. Shared environment can be powerful so long as it is in force. (The matchbox is an example of SE.) Despite our knack for blaming external variables, SE has limited effects on long term development, often contributing less than 2% of the variance in long term outcomes! The effects of NSE often (and heritability, sometimes!) increase as we age. SE is at its strongest when we are very young or when we are with other people and experience immediate consequences for our actions. (Miss a step in line dancing, the girls laugh and send you home alone. Miss a step in drill, the DI sends you for a run, also alone.) The outcome from SE is that we conform when we must. Otherwise, NSE tends to be an amplifier for genetic preferences. Diversity in opportunities lets human peculiarities and talents unfold. Heredity and Environment in Biographies
It is clear that in Darwin's case, money and friendships increased his accomplishments and made his talents more evident (Browne, 2002). Eliminate approval from Charles's uncle and from Henslow and Charles would never have gotten on the Beagle. Darwin eventually used his friends and mentors to test, reinforce, and defend his own agendas. The outcomes for Darwin might have been less dramatic if he had not benefited from Grandfather Erasmus's reputation, Robert's estate, and Emma Wedgwood's £25,000 dowry. But, maybe not. Darwin's success depended on a preexisting market, a hub of scientists and philosophers, many of them trained as theologians, who asked similar questions and derived similar answers to his. He also recruited his audience as many authors still do, using the names of correspondents and their data in his writing: most of us buy books that mention our name. Subjects in 18 of the 20 biographies that I surveyed began life more poor than Darwin but manufactured their own environments of ideas, tools, and audiences and wove both careers and fame through talent, education, hard work, marriage, or immigration, sometimes finessed with psychopathy. In any event, being in the top 1% in talent and determination means that the rest of us meet you at Barnes and Noble, see you on Oprah, or nod at your tomb in the cathedral. Nonshared Environment and Psychotherapy We must consider that our interactions with clients may differ from our customary understandings. "My father showed me" makes great sense but we ignore our reinforcing him for teaching us the particular things that matched our talents. The arrow may run the same direction in clinical work: for selfish but very individual reasons, clients reinforce therapists. The following possibilities appear to be reasonable: 1) Mixtures of client traits are unique for every client, from the thickness of their axons to the thickness of their cerebral cortex or the number of their fingers and what they like to do with them. (Sporns, 1996; Skoyles and Sagan, 2002; Bouchard et al., 1990). 2) Each client is on a quest for experiences that match their particular psychological adaptations; likewise for each therapist. Albee is said to have remarked, "a thousand people see a performance and they can see a thousand different plays." Therapists who do not consider individual client assets become just one more SE, important while the client is in session. Therapists who are catalysts who match client talents with opportunities, become part of NSE. (A couple sat with me for counseling. On the way home, each partner looked at the other and exclaimed, "See! Brody agreed with me.) 3) Memories and goals will be unique for each client even if their external histories were identical from the viewpoint of a neutral observer who also has biases in things noted. 4) Therapists and clients recruit each other for their own purposes. Client motives will often be about "winning," escape from confinement (whether by the police, employers, mates, children, or sometimes, the failings of their own body). Finding suitable tactics is a powerful reinforcer for going to therapy. 5) Therapy is a buffet that offers clients choices; the larger the menu, the greater the chance for satisfaction for both therapist and client. Also, sometimes the greater the similarity between client and therapist, the stronger the alliance that will be formed between them. "This person REALLY understands me!" 6) The automatic thoughts and emotional tools that are available to the client will vary with his or her age, reproductive standing, access to resources, seasons of the year, and significant changes in his or her niche. 7) Intact executive functions (abilities to imagine outcomes, estimate and manage time, and to plan, prioritize, and improvise solutions) could be a predictor of how long the client will need us. Further, the capacity to seek, value, and integrate conflicting opinions may be newly evolved, easily impaired and a feature that itself will have some value for our assessing the client. It may, also, allow some prediction of the duration and intensity of support that he or she may require. 8) Finally, if genes are as persuasive as they now appear, then remaining ignorant of their contributions is foolish and denying their possible contributions is psychotic. We can now admit the possibility that if a client has opportunities that are similar to her parents, she may have a life that is also similar to that of her parents. Find different opportunities for familial talents and she client will live a different life even if one that her parents might have shared if they had found those same opportunities. (See King-Hele, 1999, for a startling list of the similarities shared by Charles Darwin and his grandfather, Erasmus.) Systematic inventory of familial behavioral characteristics may be one of the most productive services that we can offer to our clients. Ignoring such information may needlessly obscure and prolong the client's searches for his or her special niche and may also contribute to their repeating errors that characterize prior generations in his or her family. Note and References 1) Most of this material was taken from a chapter in preparation: J. F. Brody, "We're all twins."
It was also revised from an essay: Brody, J. (1999) Diagnosis and Evolutionary Theory.Across Species Comparisons and Psychopathology, 12(4): 20-24. Bouchard TJ, Lykken DT, McGue M, Segal, NL, & Tellegen, A. (1990) Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota study of twins reared apart. Science, 250: 223-228. Browne, J (2002) Charles Darwin: the Power of Place. NY: Knopf. King-Hele, Desmond (1999) Erasmus Darwin: A Life of Unequaled Achievement. London, UK: Giles de la Mare. Sporns, O, (1994) Selectionist and instructionist ideas in neurobiology. In O. Sporns & G. Tononi (Eds.) Selectionism and the Brain: International Review of Neurobiology. 37, 4-26. NY: Academic. Skoyles, J & Sagan, D (2002) Up from Dragons. NY: McGraw Hill. -------------------- Copyright, James Brody, 2002, 2003, all rights reserved.
James Brody
Prior version posted 12/25/02
My 9th grade biology teacher once put a small spider into an empty matchbox and forgot about it. He rediscovered the matchbox several months later and looked inside. The spider was there, sitting in the middle of a web, waiting..."
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