Although our genes play a very important role in defining our set points, the environment is actually the one to change these set points in time

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Although our genes play a very important role in defining our set points, the environment is actually the one to change these set points in time

We all have a set-point. The sent point is that baseline emotional state to which we all come back to. This set-point sets our level of unease or contempt. New research shows that we always tend to get back to this point, which can be set by either environment or genetics.

According to a team of researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University, this set-point is the one to which we all return to, but this is a shabby situation, as this set-point can be the start point of depressions and anxieties. Furthermore, it seems that this baseline is set by genetic factors but the environment has also a lot to do with it. From what psychiatrist Kenneth S. Kendler said, it seems that such things such as childhood abuse and war-time trauma have long-lasting effects on the human psyche. In the study Kendler lead, he focused his attention more on how the environment also influences the set points for anxieties and depressions.

For the study, Kendler and his group of researchers tested the effects of nature and nurture on twins, who have identical genes, but whose experiences are very different. They tested more than 12,000 twins, out of which 4,235 were paired and 3,678 unpaired. What the twins had to do was to complete some questionnaires related to their anxieties and depressions in the 9 tests the researchers put them through. They were aged between 11, the youngest twins, and 67 the oldest twins. All the participants in the study were followed throughout the stage of their whole life, from pubescence to adulthood, to middle-life. What the researchers found was that the set points for 11-year old twins was the same, but as they advanced through their life, the difference between the set points began to grow very much apart. Thus, the results of the study show that while our genes may set our emotional states very well, life is the one that makes so many changes in this matter, that they end up changed, as we grow older. “Environmental experiences have a memory and stay with us. What governs the emotional set point of adults is a mixture of genetic factors and the total aggregate of environmental experiences,” Kendler said in regard to the study. Kendler concluded by saying that if people want to have life a happy life when they are older, they must lead a good life as adolescents and adults. That is the key to happiness in old age.

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