Ulman Lindenberger (Entwicklungspsychologie & Kognitive Alternsforschung | Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung)

»Gene-environment correlations during cycles of experience-dependent plasticity shape human individuality«

Genetically identical animals reared in a shared enriched environment nonetheless diverge, progressively and stably, in behavior and in markers of structural plasticity, demonstrating that development itself is a source of individual differences. This raises the question how human individuals come to differ, and how are those differences sustained and ultimately preserved across the lifespan. I will propose that individualization arises from the coupling of gene-environment correlations with recurring cycles of experience-dependent plasticity. Building on the expansion–exploration–selection–refinement theory of plasticity and a multifactorial gene–environment model of expert performance, I suggest that coordinated, cumulative plasticity cycles yield person-specific, hierarchically organized skills. Individuality is neither the imprint of environment on a passive organism nor the unfolding of a genetic program, but a genetically informed process of self-organization.