High intelligence and genetic inheritance: are they related?

What determines a person’s intelligence? There are many voices and studies that defend the idea that our IQ is determined or highly conditioned by the genetic code. However, this relationship is not always direct or as clear as it seems. In reality, many other factors must occur for this intellectual predisposition to manifest itself.

When we talk about high capacities it is almost obligatory to refer to a name in particular: William James Sidis. This young man, with a fleeting career and who died in the mid-1940s in the United States, is considered to date the man with the most surprising (and documented) intellectual abilities. In fact, his IQ was estimated to be over 250 points.

The most striking thing about Sidis was his education. If he was able to enter Harvard University at only 9 years old, it was not only because of his genetic inheritance. Her mother, Sara, was a doctor and her father, Boris, a psychiatrist and expert in developmental psychology. So, if there was one thing these two Ukrainian scientists knew, it was that Developing a high IQ did not depend exclusively on our 23 pairs of chromosomes.

High intelligence is the result of a facilitating environment coupled with a receptive brain. The Sidis couple guided their son’s life towards a single objective: maximizing his cognitive abilities. The result exceeded his expectations. However, this young man was more than just a child prodigy: he was a clearly unhappy person.

High intelligence and genetics: intelligent parents brilliant children?

Intelligence, like human behavior, is a complex trait. Defining it, however, is not difficult, because it includes all those experiences where a person shows a clear ability to learn, to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, understand complex ideas and give highly creative responses.

However, knowing exactly what produces individual differences in each of these competencies has always been a challenge. We could say right now that yes, it is genetic inheritance that shapes each of these abilities. What’s more, the University of Glasgow carried out a study in 2016 which showed that Those genes associated with cognitive functions are inherited mainly from mothers. The X chromosome, so to speak, would largely determine our intellectual potential.

Now, we speak in the conditional because not everything is so clear. A recent study published in the journal “Genetic Reference” has shown us something that experts have been sensing for almost a century. Social environments are what shape us, who set the conditions so that we can or cannot reach our full cognitive potential. Genetic inheritance, for its part, would only determine us by 40%.

Intelligence, a dimension sensitive to countless factors

Neurologists often comment: we overestimate the idea of ​​high intelligence. When brain surgery is performed, there is no specific area that distinguishes it. There is no specialized structure to make us brighter than the rest. In reality, it is an endless number of processes acting in harmony, a hyperconnected synaptic world that makes up a brain that is more awake, more sensitive, more efficient than the average brain.

High intelligence may depend on our genes, but a large number of factors are added to it:

A secure attachment with the mother where there is a constant emotional exchange.A positive upbringing. Adequate nutrition. School attendance and the opportunity to enjoy an education with good resources. A supportive and stimulating social environment (good family, trained teachers, an adequate and safe community…)

Unfavorable upbringing and brain plasticity

At this point, it is likely that some of our readers are asking themselves a question. What happens if my genetic inheritance is associated with high intelligence but I have not had a childhood conducive to developing it? What happens if my environment has not been favorable and my academic performance has been poor? Does this mean I will never be able to improve my IQ?

Every psychologist or psychology enthusiast has a key figure in this discipline in his or her mind. We talk about Kurt Lewin. The father of modern social psychology gave us a term that laid the foundations for many subsequent theories and studies: field theory or the power of context.. In essence, what Lewin showed us is that the human being is the result of the interaction of all his experiences, the past and especially the present. We are, our attitudes, what we choose to do with everything we have experienced.

Thus, something that could be seen by studying the trajectory of twins separated at birth and raised in different contexts, is that An unfavorable environment, with few economic resources, significantly influences the development of intelligence. However, our potential is not completely diminished or extinguished by these sterile conditions. Not if the person has the opportunity at a given moment to confront or build an environment that allows them to recover the “lost territory.”

Lewin discovered that when the twin raised in an unfavorable environment distanced himself from the dictates of his adoptive parents, he was free to let his genotypes express themselves. His cognitive abilities improved by finding motivation, an objective in line with his interests, and an environment that facilitated his goals. The brain, after all, is not a fixed and stable entity. Plasticity, our curiosity and our will are capable of producing true miracles.

You might be interested…