Intelligence is based on nature AND nurture: Study finds your environment plays a significant role in how smart you are
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Study has shown intelligence is a product of nurture as well as genetics (illustrated by a stock picture)
It is often debated whether intelligence is significantly influenced by a person's environment or their genes.
Now, a study has shown that intelligence is a product of nurture as well as nature.
Researchers found that children raised in wealthier and more educated households grow up to be smarter than those brought up in poorer homes.
And scientists made this conclusion by studying biological brothers who grew up in different families and had different IQs.
Professor of psychiatry Kenneth Kendler said: 'We're not denying cognitive ability has important genetic components but it's a naive idea to say it's only genes.
'This is strong evidence educated parents do something with their kid that makes them smarter and this is not a result of genetic factors.'
Previous studies have found educated parents are more likely to talk at the dinner table, take their children to museums and read stories to them at night, which are activities said to help boost a child's intelligence.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared the IQs of 436 Swedish brothers where one was brought up by biological parents and the other adopted.
Their IQs were measured between the ages of 18 and 20.
The researchers found that the brothers who had left the family home and had been adopted had IQs that were 4.4 points higher than their siblings.
Professor Kendler explained that in Sweden, as in most Western countries, there are more couples wanting to adopt than children up for adoption, so agencies can select the best candidates and environments.
He said that the adoptive parents in the study tended to be more educated and wealthier than the biological parents.
Professor Kenneth Kendler said: 'This is strong evidence educated parents do something with their kid that makes them smarter and this is not a result of genetic factors.' Previous studies have found educated parents are more likely to talk at the dinner table and do other activities (stock image) that make their children smarter
Professor Eric Turkheimer of the university said: 'Adoption into a more educated household is the most permanent kind of environmental change - and it has the most lasting effects.'
He authored a 2003 study that demonstrated the effect of genes on IQ depends on socioeconomic status. This latest study goes some way ito affirming that finding.
'Differences among people in their cognitive ability are influenced by both their genes and environments, but genetic effects have often been easier to demonstrate because identical twins are essentially clones and have highly similar IQs,' he said.
'Environmental effects have to be inferred as in the rare event when pairs of siblings are raised by different parents in different socioeconomic circumstances.
'The Swedish population data allowed us to find that homes led by better-educated parents produce real gains in the cognitive abilities of the children they raise.'
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