Trait Development Principles. Nature-nurture partnership theory
suggests the following five propositions about how individual dif-
ferences in traits develop:
- Genetic individuality as wellspring of experience
- Universally available human experiences as consolidator of
general (culture-independent) traits - Culturally channeled activity as consolidator of ends-specific
(culture-dependent) trait combinations - Ends-specific traits as bridges between general traits and social
niches - Niche development as culmination of a gene-driven, cultur-
ally constrained trait development process
Figure 4.6 schematizes the successive levels of trait development
to which the principles refer. More background for these principles
can be found in Gottfredson (1999).
1.Genetic individuality as wellspring of experience. Individuals are
self-activating, self-directed experience instigators, selectors, and
evaluators. The genetic propensities with which we are born, in-
cluding temperament, are the precursors of the general personality
and ability traits that will soon take form (Funder, 2001; Lykken,
Bouchard, McGue, & Tellegen, 1993). These propensities act like
an internal compass, inclining us toward or away from possible forms
of experience that we might encounter or create (for example, risky
versus safe, people-related versus things-related). We tend toward
those we resonate with and away from those that discomfit us. Emit-
ting a constant stream of mostly preconscious feedback, this compass
colors our past experiences and influences our future choices. Our
genotypes thus help shape both the perceived and actual environ-
ments in which we develop. In other words, nature activates and
shapes nurture.
GOTTFREDSON’S THEORY OF CIRCUMSCRIPTION, COMPROMISE, AND SELF-CREATION 117