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[Mikademus]

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The number generally used is 70/30 for nature/nurture when in comes to personality, lifestyle and interest proclivities and predispositions.

Such a number makes no sense without a really solid definition to back it up. Could you perhaps provide one?

You're shooting the messenger, but ok.

These definitions, or rather, descriptions, you can find in most current text books on Psychology. For instance, look for "Genetic Psychology" and "Heritability Estimates". Generally, rather than nature and nurture, the words heritability and environment are used. Heritability estimates, which is one way to measure heritability in genetic psychology, places heritability at 6 out of 10. Another good source for material on this would probably be textbooks on Criminology.

The numbers 6 or 70/30 might appear to lack context. What they mean is that for every personality trait, in a population 70% (or 60%, according to the second measurement) of the individuals displaying that trait have inherited it genetically from their parents rather than attained it from environmental influences. If you want to dig deeper into this your university library will probably have a set of books on twin studies. If you're actually interested in this topic as opposed to just arguing or defending a position in an internet debate you'll look this up yourself. Consider it an assignment

I like to eat food, drink water and breathe air because I'm an animal. That's genetic. How many percent of my "nature" part does that add up to?

You're mixing up biologic/metabolic necessities with personality traits and lifestyle predispositions.


Edit: I had fucked up the quote nesting.

[Dacke]

unsilentwill:
Stubborn? Oh my.

No. What I'm saying is: don't go around making claims that can't be supported with facts. If a-priori knowledge is needed to prove that "men like to hunt, genetically", then it is per definition impossible to know that men genetically like to hunt.

If something is impossible to know, then you shouldn't pretend to know nor make assumptions about it.

If you do, you will only create or spread myths.

Mikademus:
I didn't mean to shoot anyone. I just said that without any context, the numbers didn't make any sense

There are many things I want to look deeper into, this is definitely one of them. But please don't always assume that the rest of us lack academic knowledge in different areas.

[Mikademus]

There are many things I want to look deeper into, this is definitely one of them.

Great! This is a fascinating field of research, some of which has been extremely controversial and some have been put to horribly unethical uses!

[Rob Lach]

The numbers 6 or 70/30 might appear to lack context. What they mean is that for every personality trait, in a population 70% (or 60%, according to the second measurement) of the individuals displaying that trait have inherited it genetically from their parents rather than attained it from environmental influences. If you want to dig deeper into this your university library will probably have a set of books on twin studies. If you're actually interested in this topic as opposed to just arguing or defending a position in an internet debate you'll look this up yourself. Consider it an assignment

I definitely believe that, but more importantly, how closely do your interests correlate with your personality traits? I think in that aspect, nurture has a greater effect than nature. Or maybe in a more complex approach, what sort of personlity traits can you attribute to a particular interest, and whether any of those traits have a gender preference.


Edit: Mein Gott, where has this thread ventured off into. It seems every innocent complaint or observation on these forums turns into some huge debate about social issues, moreso than any other forum I'm a member of. I wonder if this exploratory and retrospective perspective many people on this forum have is related to our interest in indie games.

[Mikademus]

I definitely believe that, but more importantly, how closely do your interests correlate with your personality traits? I think in that aspect, nurture has a greater effect than nature. Or maybe in a more complex approach, what sort of personlity traits can you attribute to a particular interest, and whether any of those traits have a gender preference.

Probably the two keywords of particular interest here are interaction effect (between predisposition and environment) and self-selection - the tendency of a person to select interests, jobs, lifestyles etc, he has an unconscious proclivity for. When nurture and nature coincide then you'll have a particularly salient trait or penchant etc, and individuals will tend to elect to engage in activities for which they perceive an affinity. So yeah, absolutely, your interests will very likely coincide strongly with your personality traits.

Edit: Nice meta-point! 

[Paul Eres]

There are no indications that personality-traits are related to such biological roles.

It wouldn't be impossible for such a connection to exist.

But to assume that there are such connections, without any proofs, is just a way to perpetuate such myths.

The "experiment" you are asking for is called "the past". If you look into the past, you will find that gender roles are in no way fixed.

gender roles aren't the issue though, we're talking about sex -- there's a difference. male and females have hugely different hormone profiles. for instance, less testosterone in females, and testosterone does affect personality. anyone who has removed the testes of a cat and seen the difference in a male cats personality before and after can attest to that.

ignore genetics, and just consider the huge hormonal differences between males and females, and how those hormones are known to affect personality. there's a lot of research on this, and to say that one's sex doesn't influence one's personality just seems anti-science to me.

[Dacke]

Indeed. Lucky thing I didn't say that, then

I was talking about gender roles. I argued against the assumption that we are able to look at (supposed) historical gender roles, and through them predict what women/men actually would prefer to do if not under the influence of society.

And even then (scientifically enough) I said that it's possible that such tendencies can exist. But that I have not seen any proof of that, only speculations.

Such speculations have historically been shown to be inaccurate. If we are to trust them, they should be properly backed up by actual research.

[Paul Eres]

could you be more specific about what you mean by gender roles? i'm not sure i understand the difference between gender roles and personality differences between the genders. at the very least there's a lot of interrelation there: for instance, if testosterone makes males more competitive, that may explain why males often have higher positions in various companies -- not because they're more skilled than women, but because they want to be in a higher position more, and compete over such spots.

[C.A. Sinner]

I don't want to answer for Dacke here, but I think he was talking about very specific gender stereotypes like the old working man/housewife dichotomy etc.

[Dacke]

Paul:

It could explain such things, sure.

But I have so far given no proper reason to believe so. If you look at how much people are formed due to expectations put on them (this is the science I have seen), I find it hard to believe that hormonal differences would override that.

But if that indeed is the case, I would love to see some evidence for it. But so far, my interpretation of this discussion is that we are only dealing with speculations.

Such speculations have had an adverse impact on society so far. Many people tend to think of these speculations as truths. This in turn makes people treat others different based on their sex, which in turn keeps the gender segregation alive.

[John Nesky]

And now, my grand unifying theory of gender roles. Starting from two presumptions:

1. Environment contributes to behavior. I mean, spelling contributes to behavior, for chrissake. (Psst, my name is NESky and I am a fanboy.) So of course people tend towards culturally defined gender roles in an effort to identify themselves.

2. Genetics and hormones, including sex, also contribute to behavior. I mean, how could they not? For starters, pregnancy is a huge life-changing investment that will never happen to me. Although the effect of pregnancy can be mitigated if you specifically avoid it, it's nevertheless a big deal that has a ripple effect on everything we do.

So my theory is that genetics tip us slightly off balance with relatively minor sex differences, and people pick up on these differences and focus on them and exaggerate them.

Females are naturally slightly smaller overall. So they go on diets to look smaller to be even more female, while males work out and "bulk up" to be even more male.

Behavior differences probably work the same way. Any imbalance due to "nature", however slight, will get exaggerated due to "nurture".

So here we are at the tail end of the bell curve, doing something that is for many reasons seen as "a guy thing". Probably some fraction of us wouldn't even be here if our gender wasn't seen as the dominant gender here. The same force that keeps women out of indie game development is keeping men in. We are able to identify ourselves, finding like-minded folk, in this community.

So is this a problem? Haha, well, that's a very subjective question.

Remember there are two things going on here: natural and cultural forces. I am totally okay with the natural ones. However, the cultural tendency towards gender roles frustrates me a little. I an interested to see the things that people would do if they weren't tending towards gender roles. I am interested in making people feel welcome to do whatever they want. I am interested in diversity, for its own sake.

[Rob Lach]

Nice post Nesky.

Next compo: Solving the World's problems.

[Movius]

I was right. We have had this thread before.

[bento_smile]

This thread does make me want to write article(s) which demystify making games though.   (Doubt that is useful to anyone here, haha)

[The Monster King]

Man so much trouble with what is a woman and what is man and what makes one more a man and less a girl.

You know i can count as a woman in indie games, from the back my long and silky hair makes me look like a broad-shouldered yet somehow feminine young lass, of course the illusion is dispersed as soon as the beard stubble (or just beard depending on days) hits. also the voice.

anyways yeah i think guys have a penis and girls have a vagina BUT WAIT YOU'RE A GIRL STUCK IN THE BODY OF A MAN ok well i'll let my old friend John C. Reilly do this one. I heard he makes games, by the way.

You know I've been trying to get some of my more artistically inclined girl friends to make games but apparently animating sounds really scary to some and they are so BUSY with THINGS and whatev'. Not that I get anything different from the guys, whether they're artists or coders! Guess not everyone enjoys the gift of the game...

We have it... a gift... let's enjoy it...

I think we'd all like it if there were more girls in this craft, sometimes some details of game making are only attractive to a dicked part of my friend circle, when you get those crazy ideas you're all YESSS LET'S MAKE THE LASER CHARGE UP TO NINE DIFFERENT LEVELS but sometimes the amount of charging your laser can do just isn't something that's phenomenally cool to your girl friends! 'course it's not to half of my guy friends but whatev'. We'd like it 'cuz it's cool to have your significant other (for all you hetero guys out there and all of the lesbian girl game developpers too i guess!!) not think your arts and dreams is "that's good honey" but "HOLY SHIT THAT'S AWESOME YOU DID THAT???!?!?"

what i mean by that is that i don't want to date a girl that's into scrapbooking


whoa a new answer

bento_smile that is the old problem of "it is only useful to those not interested in it"