The name is absent

7 couldcry when I think of the years I wasted accumulating
money, only to learn that my cheerful disposition is genetic.”

This result also attracted the attention of the New Yorker. But, assuming that these findings
can be replicated, some rather important questions remain to be considered. First of all, if
happiness is an emergenic trait as these data suggest, what does that mean, exactly? It appears
that we can predict an MZ twins’ subjective well-being vastly better from his cotwin’s score nine
years earlier than we can from the target twin’s IQ, or from his current level of social, economic,
or marital success. But this same prediction fails almost completely in the case of DZ twins.

Secondly, if the happiness set-point is largely determined by genetic factors, does this mean
that there is nothing we can do to increase our own or our child’s hedonic level? In the paper in

<<   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   >>

More intriguing information