Psychologists call this the “diathesis-stress model.” If you have this bad gene and encounter problems in life, you’re predisposed to end up with a disorder like depression or anxiety, so pray you don’t have the awful gene that can turn you into a monster. There’s only one problem: more and more it’s looking like this perspective might be wrong. Recent discoveries in genetics are turning this bad gene vs. good gene model on its head and pointing toward what looks a lot more like the concept of intensifiers. Psychologists call it the “differential susceptibility hypothesis.” The same genes that
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