Are Habits Hereditary?

[Fuelbi]

So I noticed this today. See I was talking to my parents about one of my family members who is sick. Then we started talking about why he was sick. I prefer not to reveal that if it is not a problem. Then me and my grandmother (once my father left) started talking about my grandfather. He was a drinker and a smoker. My uncle turned out to be just as a heavy smoker as he is. And my grandfather used to drink alot which my other uncle turned out to drink like him. My dad does like to drink but he drinks responsibly and drinks a little bit. I then started wondering "Was that hereditary?". I found a few articles on the internet which say that according to studies it is.

Here they are

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bad-and-Addictive-Habits-May-be-Hereditary-33939.shtml

http://www.disability-resource.com/medical-health/alcoholism/alcoholism-is-it-hereditary-.php

http://www.articlealley.com/article_87495_17.html

My opinion is that it is. So the question here is "Are habits a choice or are they unavoidable if you have the right genes?" My answer to that is that it is unavoidable but it didnt say if the member can quit. I think the member can quit if they take the right steps.

 

[hillbillyhick]

The methods used to conclude these results are sadly not mentioned in any of the articles. But I think twin studies were probably performed. Your last article also makes mention of NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming). It sounds fancy and scientific, but it's really just pseudoscience with no evidence of it being effective, this makes your third article a questionable source.

Habits are a choice imo (it's nature vs nurture again XD). The choice is just harder for some than others. This "smoking gene" or others like it just make it easier to turn occasional behavior into habit and habit into addiction. Many people will never touch a cigarette in their life although they have parents who smoke (even when the gene has been passed on).

 

[NukSuCao]

I've done a "test" on this theory in school before. We had every student in school(only 160 of us) check off their habits, ranging from smoking to cracking their knuckles to almost anything anyone suggested. Then we had each of them ask their parents if they have ever had a habit of any kind. The greatest part of this was that EVERY student had a habit. And EVERY parent had one, too, but only (this is off the top of my head, I don't have the actual figure anymore)around 40% had similar ones to their parents. I don't believe that habits are necessarily hereditary, but it may be from the visuals around them but usually in reverse. Most parents that DIDN'T smoke had children that did(at least in my school).

The only habit that was almost a 90% ratio was cracking knuckles. That's a very abundant one.

I think you're talking more about "bad" habits, but I think my "test" is still viable. Smoking is bad, as is knuckle cracking. I've been told to stop doing the latter more than I have been told to never smoke. And my fingers hate me for not stopping.

 

[GoldShadow]

There's nothing wrong with cracking your knuckles. It's not bad for you.

As for habits, I'll have to dig up some material I've read before.

 

[NukSuCao]

Cracking your knuckles causes them to grow in size and also causes misalignment in your hands. I can post pics of my bent, huge-knuckled fingers if you want. I also have constant joint pain in my hands. I'm freakin' 15 years old. Yeah, it's bad.

Dietary and athletic habits seem to be passed on through families. It's more than likely not through a gene though, more through the parenting that each child gets. If a child's father gets up at six each morning to jog, the child will be more likely to do so because it becomes familiar to him. At the same time, if the mother makes really fatty foods all the time and never does anything athletic it will create an overweight child.

I don't believe that every aspect of life can be passed down through biologic means, but through visual means.

 

[GoldShadow]

Cracking your knuckles causes them to grow in size and also causes misalignment in your hands. I can post pics of my bent, huge-knuckled fingers if you want. I also have constant joint pain in my hands. I'm freakin' 15 years old. Yeah, it's bad.

I stand by my statement, cracking your knuckles does not do this.
http://healthpsych.psy.vanderbilt.edu/2009/KnuckleCracking.htm
http://www.hopkins-arthritis.org/arthritis-news/2007/knuckle-cracking-and-arthritis.html
http://ard.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/49/5/308
http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/knuckles.html

It sucks that you have hand and joint problems; cracking your knuckles might make it worse for people who already have these problems. But it does not cause them.

 

[hillbillyhick]

Cracking your knuckles causes them to grow in size and also causes misalignment in your hands. I can post pics of my bent, huge-knuckled fingers if you want. I also have constant joint pain in my hands. I'm freakin' 15 years old. Yeah, it's bad.

Dietary and athletic habits seem to be passed on through families. It's more than likely not through a gene though, more through the parenting that each child gets. If a child's father gets up at six each morning to jog, the child will be more likely to do so because it becomes familiar to him. At the same time, if the mother makes really fatty foods all the time and never does anything athletic it will create an overweight child.

I don't believe that every aspect of life can be passed down through biologic means, but through visual means.

I don't know about dietary or athletic habits, but there are many studies which show that certain habits and traits are indeed hereditary and not only explainable through parenting or learning.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicin...-Both-Genetics--26-Family-Environment-2450-1/
http://www.learn-about-alcoholism.com/alcoholism-and-genetics.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8272445
The big five show substantial heritability:
http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall06/yoonh/psy3135//Jang et al_1996.pdf
Neuroticism (one of the big five) is linked to smoking:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/08/20/Neuroticism-linked-to-smoking/UPI-71931250741802/

I could find a lot more if I had access to a decent database, but I'm on the wrong pc.

Like I said before, the genetic component is important, but it doesn't explain all the variance. A genetic disposition might make it harder to resist smoking, but it doesn't make it impossible.

 

[TigerWoods]

I don't know about dietary or athletic habits, but there are many studies which show that certain habits and traits are indeed hereditary and not only explainable through parenting or learning.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicin...-Both-Genetics--26-Family-Environment-2450-1/
http://www.learn-about-alcoholism.com/alcoholism-and-genetics.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8272445
The big five show substantial heritability:
http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall06/yoonh/psy3135//Jang%20et%20al_1996.pdf
Neuroticism (one of the big five) is linked to smoking:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/08/20/Neuroticism-linked-to-smoking/UPI-71931250741802/

I could find a lot more if I had access to a decent database, but I'm on the wrong pc.

Like I said before, the genetic component is important, but it doesn't explain all the variance. A genetic disposition might make it harder to resist smoking, but it doesn't make it impossible.

Genetically, physical traits and personalities are passed from parents to offspring. Habits are not. According to encyclopedia Encarta and wikipedia, habits are defined as acquired patterns of behavior that happen almost subconsciously. The definition of acquired is obtained, not born with.

Some of your sources prove that genetics influences the heredity of personality traits. This is true, and will most certainly affect what habits are acquired, however the habits themselves are not passed. For example, a personality trait that causes the individual to succumb more easily to addiction may point to the fact that the addiction was hereditary, where instead it was actually the trait that led the individual to do so. Risk is passed, not habits. Although I agree with your comment that traits are passed.

Also some of your sources are unfinished experiments that have not yet linked the actual addiction to genes. If more conclusive proof comes out in the future, selections of my argument may be debunked. Until then however, the actual genetic passing of habits are speculation.

I agree with your concluding statement, hillbillyhick.





Your(roacherman) argument that the children you supplied have some of the same habits as their parents is invalid, due to the fact that children(and some people) are easily influenced and pick up traits from those around them. I flick my hair up like my father and sister not because I genetically inherited it, but because I thought the hair flick was really cool when I was 5(and I haven't stopped doing it since ).
hillbillyhick is also correct to state that the majority of your sources were speculation and not fully researched.


*addiction source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction

 

[hillbillyhick]

Genetically, physical traits and personalities are passed from parents to offspring. Habits are not. According to encyclopedia Encarta and wikipedia, habits are defined as acquired patterns of behavior that happen almost subconsciously. The definition of acquired is obtained, not born with.

Thanks for correcting me on my wrong usage of "habit", you're right. I mean to say the same thing I said in my conclusion (a genetic disposition that may make it easier to develop a habit). The causal relationship between genetics and habits seems to me to be an indirect one, with mediating variables such as traits, etc...

Some of your sources prove that genetics influences the heredity of personality traits. This is true, and will most certainly affect what habits are acquired, however the habits themselves are not passed. For example, a personality trait that causes the individual to succumb more easily to addiction may point to the fact that the addiction was hereditary, where instead it was actually the trait that led the individual to do so. Risk is passed, not habits. Although I agree with your comment that traits are passed.

I agree completely with your example, it would actually be nonsensical to say habits are hereditary, your definition doesn't allow them to be. In your example, one should indeed not conclude that the addiction is hereditary, but that there is a heritable genetic factor causally responsible for this addiction. The trait could then be a variable mediating the relationship between genes and addiction.

Also some of your sources are unfinished experiments that have not yet linked the actual addiction to genes. If more conclusive proof comes out in the future, selections of my argument may be debunked. Until then however, the actual genetic passing of habits are speculation.

You're right in the sense that they do not say which specific genes are responsible, but they do give some evidence for a relationship between a heritable genetic factor and addiction.

I agree with your concluding statement, hillbillyhick

Your(roacherman) argument that the children you supplied have some of the same habits as their parents is invalid, due to the fact that children(and some people) are easily influenced and pick up traits from those around them. I flick my hair up like my father and sister not because I genetically inherited it, but because I thought the hair flick was really cool when I was 5(and I haven't stopped doing it since ).
hillbillyhick is also correct to state that the majority of your sources were speculation and not fully researched.


*addiction source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction