The doctor reveals how your personality is influenced by heredity and environment
Published:
Published February 20, 2024
Few, like the doctor Anders Hansen, have entered the Swedish public homes and educated us.
Now he is current with a new series about our personalities.
– When I first heard some of these things, I thought “this can’t be true”, he says.
Anders Hansen recently turned 50. Now he is current with a new TV series: “Your personality”, which will begin broadcasting on SVT1 on February 20, 2024. Photo: Björn Lindahl
Anders Hansen recently turned 50, a number that many celebrate but which can also cause a certain amount of stress and anxiety.
– Man, it feels good. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to, actually. But that’s life.
But you’re through it and over the 50 mark for sure.
– It is a fairly considerable age historically. There have been 110 billion homo sapiens and half of them died before adolescence, so you have been lucky to have lived this long. It’s actually quite small as I see it.
Anders Hansen has thought about himself and why he is who he is and asks himself “if I had grown up in another place, in another family in another country. How much like myself would I have been? “Photo: Björn Lindahl
We meet at SVT, in a bright room covered with wooden panels. Anders Hansen, who can call himself a doctor, writer and presenter, is current with a new series “Your personality” in four parts that will start airing on February 20 on SVT.
– It is about personality. And personality is very important. It is our personality traits, whether we are introverted or extroverted, whether we are meticulous or careless. But it is also how we see the world. How we think, he says.
Heritage and environment
Anders says that he has always wondered what his personality would have looked like if he had lived a different life.
– If I had grown up in another family in another country. How much like myself would I have been?
In the first episode of the series, he explores that very question.
– If five identical twins had been born and four were adopted at birth and they grow up in completely different environments and then they come home to me as adults. I have done that thought experiment many times. Had they been copies or aliens?
With the help of experts, he searches for an answer.
– They have followed tens of thousands of people over decades. They have followed hundreds of cases of identical twins who have been separated.
Anders Hansen tries to follow the photographer’s instructions “Should I lean back like this”, he says and looks a little embarrassed. Photo: Björn Lindahl
The question of how heredity and environment affect our personalities has been relevant for a very long time.
– Throughout our history, I think. People have pondered this throughout the ages.
Is there a simple answer to that question?
– The personality researchers who have followed this and published thousands of studies based on hundreds of thousands of individuals have concluded that the best way to describe a person’s personality is five traits.
Five characteristics
This is the five-factor model Anders Hansen is talking about. It encompasses five broad personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. A model he describes as heavily scientifically based.
– Then you have been able to see that about half of these five traits are due to one’s genes. The other half that is not due to genes, is due to chance and friends, rather than parents. It is a very clear finding. It goes against what you think. I would probably have been quite the same if I had grown up in a different family.
In the TV series “Your Personality” Anders Hansen meets identical twins Tom and Steve who grew up separately without knowing about each other’s existence. Photo: SVT
Anders Hansen has been called the rock star of popular science, an epithet that he himself seems a little embarrassed by. But regardless of how it is with that matter, it is clear that the Swedish people have taken him to their hearts.
How important is it to you to educate us humans?
– It is very important to me. I have always been interested in storytelling. When I grew up, I dreamed of becoming a director. I enjoyed visual storytelling. Then when I started studying medicine and holding a brain, I understood that this is human nature. This is it! This tells something about us that is valuable. I’ve found myself trying to bring those two things together; the storytelling and the learning.
Anders describes the work with the TV series he has done as joyful and rewarding.
– When I do these series, I don’t want to finish and get praise. I find the process insanely fun. And it also feels very meaningful. Making it is the series has made me understand myself better, and I think the viewers will understand themselves better. Understand why they turned out the way they did.
Fact
Facts / TV series “Your personality”
Episode 1: Heredity or environment, which decides?
What are the major personality traits that we all have more or less of and how crucial is our growing up environment? Psychiatrist and author Anders Hansen wants to find out. He meets identical twins Tom and Steve, who grew up on separate sides without knowing each other’s existence, and he receives a basic course in personality from the world’s foremost expert on the subject, Brian Little.
Episode 2: Can I Change My Personality?
Does our personality change through life and if so how? Author David Lagercrantz talks about his neurotic personality and actress Marianne Mörck about her introverted side. Anders meets the world-leading geneticist Robert Plomin and learns that our personalities are formed in a completely different way than many might think.
Episode 3: What is it like to be diagnosed as a psychopath?
Anders takes a closer look at the dark part of our personality – narcissism and psychopathy. In the US, he meets the lawyer ME Thomas who is diagnosed with psychopathy to find out what it is like to live with such a personality. And at home in Sweden, he meets a woman who is a narcissist and the psychologist who helps her function better.
Episode 4: Why We Have Different Personalities
Environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg talks about how her autism affects her and master chef Adam Thulin opens up about his ADHD. Anders travels to Kenya to fulfill one of the biggest dreams of his life – he will finally get to spend time together with a group of hunter-gatherers on the savanna who live as we humans have done for 99% of our history.
SOURCE: SVT
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