2011/07/01 by Wendy Johnson, Lars Penke, Frank M. Spinath · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Psychology · #Behavioural genetics #Biology #Cognitive Abilities and Testing #Developmental psychology #Evolutionary biology #Exposition (narrative) #Genetic Associations and Epidemiology #Genetic variants #Genetics #Heritability #Mental Health Research Topics #Missing heritability problem #Psychology
paper · doi:10.1002/per.835
openalex publication_date 2011/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Commentators generally found our exposition of the concept of heritability helpful for psychologists, suggesting that we largely accomplished our primary goal. Many provided supplemental and helpful perspectives on concepts we addressed. A few of the comments indicated that we may not have been completely successful in making clear our secondary goal, which was to outline how heritability estimates confound a plethora of influences. In this response, we thus emphasize that we do not claim that specific kinds of complexity, or, even worse, intractable complexity, pervade the genetics of behavioural traits. Rather, our claim is that genetics is riddled with complexity of many degrees and kinds, and heritability is a poor indicator of either degree or kind of underlying genetic complexity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.