Most people say they think nurture is more important than nature, especially white Americans

There was a discussion on Twitter about the belief in nature vs. nurture among the American populace. The General Social Survey actually has some questions related to this. They are the variables: GENENVO1, GENENVO2, GENENVO3 and GENENVO4.

These all ask the following question about different scenarios:

Character, personality, and many types of behavior are influenced both by the genes people inherit from their parents and by what they learn and experience as they grow up. For each of the following descriptions, we would like you to indicate what percent of the person’s behavior you believe is influenced by the genes they inherit, and what percent is influenced by their learning and experience and other aspects of their environment. The boxes on handcard D1 are arranged so that the first box on the LEFT (which is numbered 1) represents 100% genetic influence (and 0% environment). The next box (numbered 2) represents 95% genes (and 5% environment), and so on. The RIGHTMOST box (numbered 21) represents 100% environmental influence (and no genetic influence). After each description, please type the number of the box that comes closest to your answer. Please use the numbered scale on handcard D1 to indicate, FOR EACH OF THE BEHAVIORS DESCRIBED, what percent of the person’s behavior you think is influenced by the genes they inherit, and what percent is influenced by their learning and experience. After each question, type the number of the box that comes closest to your answer. Remember, the higher the number, the more you think the behavior is influenced by learning and experience; the lower the number, the more you think it is influenced by genes

I decided to convert the 1-21 scale into quartiles. So that instead of 21 categories there were 4, defined as people who think it is 75-100% genes, 50-75%, 25-50% genes, and 0-25% genes (lower numbers equals “more blank slate”). I also decided to control for demography. For sample size reasons I created two ethno-racial categories, black and white, for non-Hispanics. I divided these into those with high school educations or less, or college educations or more. These questions were asked in 2004.

Some generalizations:

• Americans believe more in nurture than nature.
• Educated Americans believe more in nurture, not nature.
• White Americans believe more in nurture, not nature.

None of this is surprising to me. I was in graduate school studying genetics, and I can tell you that on behavioral stuff most geneticists believe nurture is dominant (with the exception of those who study behavioral stuff).

	Non-Hispanic White			Non-Hispanic Black
	HS or less	College or greater		HS or less	College or greater
Carol is a substantially overweight white woman. She has lost weight in the past but always gains it back again.
75-100% genes	17	8		30	22
50-75% genes	21	21		19	14
25-50% genes	27	36		16	27
0-25% genes	36	35		35	37
David is an Asian man who drinks enough alcohol to become drunk several times a week. Often he can’t remember what happened during these drinking episodes.
75-100% genes	23	10		27	22
50-75% genes	21	20		26	6
25-50% genes	26	38		19	31
0-25% genes	31	32		27	40
Felicia is a very kind Hispanic woman. She never has anything bad to say about anybody, and can be counted on to help others.
75-100% genes	21	8		25	30
50-75% genes	20	22		21	7
25-50% genes	25	34		24	22
0-25% genes	35	36		30	41
George is a black man who’s a good all-around athlete. He was on the high school varsity swim team and still works out five times a week
75-100% genes	20	12		29	28
50-75% genes	22	21		24	10
25-50% genes	26	36		19	26
0-25% genes	31	32		28	35

 Some people will ask about politics, limiting to non-Hispanic whites for the same questions:

	Non-Hispanic White
	Liberal	Conservative
Carol is a substantially overweight white woman. She has lost weight in the past but always gains it back again.
75-100% genes	19	13
50-75% genes	24	19
25-50% genes	26	29
0-25% genes	32	39
David is an Asian man who drinks enough alcohol to become drunk several times a week. Often he can’t remember what happened during these drinking episodes.
75-100% genes	21	14
50-75% genes	17	23
25-50% genes	31	29
0-25% genes	31	33
Felicia is a very kind Hispanic woman. She never has anything bad to say about anybody, and can be counted on to help others.
75-100% genes	18	16
50-75% genes	26	19
25-50% genes	26	25
0-25% genes	30	39
George is a black man who’s a good all-around athlete. He was on the high school varsity swim team and still works out five times a week
75-100% genes	18	14
50-75% genes	22	23
25-50% genes	33	29
0-25% genes	27	35

These results surprised me enough that I double-checked the coding. And it looks like they are correct.

One thing I will add: people probably are biased toward nurture on surveys, but intuitively believe more in nature than they let on. I think an analogy here would be that they probably underemphasize looks in their partners when asked about characteristics which are important, but their preferences indicate they care a lot about looks. Also, when asking children I think intuitively they’ll come back with a more hereditarian answer because of the stuff Paul Bloom talks about in .

I am well aware that for various reason Americans children seem to believe in innate ability more than East Asians. But I think that that result is somewhat misleading. It represents something, but it is not everything. East Asians also believe in heredity, as evidenced by the Chinese government’s occasional nakedly eugenical pronouncements.

Not only is the “nature vs. nurture” dichotomy kind of “not even wrong” in terms of the science, it collapses genuine complexity in terms of peoples’ attitudes on this question.