Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed

by Will Storr

When we’re born, then, our brain is ready for the world – or at least a world. It rushes out to greet it, gets to know it, then prunes itself down, specializing itself for the particular culture in which it finds itself. Much of the environment’s influence over who we turn out to be takes place in childhood and adolescence, periods in which our brain is in its phase of heightened, developmental plasticity. Influencing the way our brains initially wire up are our genes. ‘But a genome doesn’t specify the final form of the brain,’ Professor Jonathan Haidt told me. ‘It really just specifies the starting conditions. That’s sort of the initial direction, the first draft of mind. But then as we grow up our brains expect to get all kinds of information from the environment. They continue growing, while incorporating that information.’ People have long argued about what is more important in determining who we are, genes or environment. In a major study, researchers in Queensland collated the results of 2,748 papers and concluded the average variation across all human traits and diseases is caused by 49 per cent genetic factors and 51 per cent environmental factors. Co-author Beben Benyamin added that environment seemed to have a greater influence over aspects related to ‘social values and attitudes’.