The first concern of mom and dad? Make sure that the child grows up happy and content. However, according to the theory put forward by Alberto Halabe Bucay of the Research Center Halabe and Darwich, Mexico, they should be concerned with building their child's happiness before birth, after which it may already be too late.
According to the study, published in the May journal Bioscience Hypotheses, Hormones and chemicals from happiness, depression, and other mental states can affect oocytes and sperm, causing lasting changes in our children already at the time of their conception.
“It is known that parental behavior has an effect on children and that genes that a child receives from his parents help him build his character, ”explained Halabe Bucay. "My paper - she added - suggests how parental psychology before conception can actually affect the child's genes."
“It's an intriguing idea - commented William Bains, editor of Bioscience Hypotheses magazine. "We wanted to publish it - he added - to see what other scientists think and if others have data that can support or deny it". An earlier study, published last year, also concluded that happiness is partly tied to a person's personality traits, which are in turn largely inherited from parents.
Psychologists had identified common genes that express personality traits which predisposes people to be more sunny than others or, as they say, to see the glass always 'half full'. "Happiness is subject to external influences, but we have found that there is a hereditary component that can be fully explained by the genetic architecture of the personality," said Alexander Weiss, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh who led the study.
However, parents are not fully responsible for their children's happiness. In fact, other studies have shown that the keys to happiness are manifold and that life experiences seem to play an important role.
(Halabe Bucay et al. Endorphins, personality, and inheritance: Establishing the biochemical bases of inheritance. Bioscience Hypotheses, May 7, 2009)
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- happiness
- Parents
- genes have been identified.
- moods
- postpartum depression
- development of the fetus
