Genes play a role in the likelihood of divorce

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Children of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced themselves. Is that a product of nature or nurture?

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THAT the children of divorced parents are more likely, when they grow up, to get divorced themselves is well known. What is not known is how much this tendency is the result of nurture , and how much it is caused by nature . That genes are important has, though, now been confirmed by a study published inby Jessica Salvatore and Kenneth Kendler of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioural Genetics.

To explore the role of genes Dr Salvatore and Dr Kendler turned to the Swedish national registries. These databases store, for all residents of Sweden, information on sex, year of birth, year of death, marital status, criminal activity, education and alcohol abuse. They also contain details of both the biological and the adoptive parents of adopted children.

With this result under their belt, Dr Salvatore and Dr Kendler then looked at adopted and biological siblings brought up in the same households. As expected, they found that individuals showed a similar tendency to divorce to that of their biological siblings but not to that of their adopted siblings. They also discovered that if one biological sibling divorces, the others are 20% more likely to do so than would otherwise be the case. This is not true for adoptive siblings.

All of these results strongly suggest, Dr Salvatore and Dr Kendler argue, that genetic factors play an important part in the “transmission” of divorce across generations—and that this needs to be taken into consideration when offering psychological support and relationship counselling to people whose parents have split up, even if those people never knew the parents in question.

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Isnt it 50/50 that most people divorced anyway? If it is connected it seems more likely since nature and nurture are intertwined almost as one it could be behaviour learned from the parent before birth.

Divorce is not a bad thing!

And it is implied that getting divorced is worse than staying in a shitty marriage ...

break the chain

But it’s not only biological, it’s also environmental and social and financial

jemygatdula Isn't divorce a choice to give up on a marriage? So, a choice cannot be inherited.

Because they know that staying in a bad marriage isn't a good thing or a goal?

I wonder whether cheating parents could inherit their cheating DNA to children

It is radiculous...

Depends on the type of relationship the children find themselves..... Some people are very unlucky and can be generationext if care is not taken

Nature and nurture.. more likely to inherit personality characteristics from parents , likely to be reinforced by nurture causing interpersonal behaviour patterns

Yeah...... right

I think it is like knowing one more trick out of a very bad situation

Divorce is in education, never in DNA.

Have you also considered that society and it’s rules are changing? What is easy today (divorce) wasn’t as easy in the previous generations due to many factors (public opinion, finance, religion,...) so maybe we need to consider three factors vs only 2

Both. We are all capable of learning from our history. We are all capable of anything. So many other factors to be included:maturity, self-worth, education, emotional intelligence, trust, communication style, self-awareness, etc.

Seriously! My sisters and I are all married and all doing very well in our relationships.. 27yrs/21/10 yes married..just because our parents didn’t work is no reflection on ours

IT IS A PRODUCT OF PERSONALITY

Uh, nurture, case closed. Next question

No it doesn’t This is classic failed causality thinking. It is not in the genes. This is all nurturing, learned behaviors.

Or we could quit pressuring and reinforcing an antiquated system of control in to people...

On this topic I'd lean more towards nurture and societies acceptance of divorce and single parenting. Not saying that all divorces or single parenting is bad just that it easier then say a half a century ago.

Complex, but nurture over nature ... learned.

The Economist changed their editorial staff just for the summer? Lately we saw a dangerous approach to the tabula rasa theory. Now, it's 2 in a row for a more balanced view not excluding biology out of the equation...

Nurture. It is so easy to walk away. Harder to make sacrifices and stick around.

Something I love about science is that they tell us something today and they can swear by Sir Isaac Newton that it's so, but soon they come back in a few years and tell us that they discovered something else that's truer. Anyways! 🙄🙃

well it's like everything in life.. if you live in a village and theres only Greta and Margret to swing back and forth with, well.. versus all you can eat buffets in big cities.. so it depends. ReLucions

You can discuss this subject for weeks/months. Yet you still can't get a real answer for it cause you have to make a research individually for every case. There are to many reseans for a divorce.

That depends if the parents put resentment and ago aside for the wellfair of their little ones , and keep moving forward keeping in mind all we can do is keep going .. there is so many selfish ego driving parents in our world but that is their chosen path and lays on them souly

Or, actually manage to avoid it...🙄

Who needs marriage when a couple times a week you can revert to little girl form and mess yourself in a high chair for daddy 🤷‍♂️ just the tea sksksksksk

Why does it matter? Especially for something as personal as divorce?

The family business.

Choice

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