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Blueprint

Blueprint

How DNA Makes Us Who We Are

by Robert Plomin

Hardcover
eBook

280 pp., 6 x 9 in,

Hardcover
9780262039161
Published: November 13, 2018
Publisher: The MIT Press

$27.95

eBook
9780262350617
Published: October 26, 2018
Publisher: The MIT Press

$17.99

Out of print

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A paperback edition of this title is in print and available through MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262537988/blueprint/

In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent life-long sources of our psychological individuality—the blueprint that makes us who we are. This, says Plomin, is a game changer.

Plomin has been working on these issues for almost fifty years, conducting longitudinal studies of twins and adoptees. He reports that genetics explains more of the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Genetics accounts for fifty percent of psychological differences—not just mental health and school achievement but all psychological traits, from personality to intellectual abilities. Nature, not nurture is what makes us who we are.

Plomin explores the implications of this, drawing some provocative conclusions—among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect. Neither tiger mothers nor attachment parenting affects children's ability to get into Harvard. After describing why DNA matters, Plomin explains what DNA does, offering readers a unique insider's view of the exciting synergies that came from combining genetics and psychology.

Robert Plomin is Professor of Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King's College London. He previously held positions at the University of Colorado Boulder and Pennsylvania State University. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and of the British Academy for his twin studies and his groundbreaking work in behavioral genetics. He is the author or coauthor of many books, including G is for Genes: The Impact of Genetics on Education and Achievement (with Kathryn Asbury).

Plomin is a psychologist and geneticist, and he makes a persuasive case for the primacy of genes over environment in shaping our individual personalities. Genetics is a discipline that has been saying as much for a long time now, but Plomin really emphasises just how great the genetic influence is even in areas we'd hitherto assumed were almost entirely environmental. You don't have to agree with him, but you can't read the book without seeing the world afresh.
The Guardian