Importance of Heredity in Development

• Heredity means the traits and abilities passed down from parents through genes. It gives a person basic potential — like intelligence, height, or skin color.

• The environment includes all factors around a person (like nutrition, education, family, and culture) that help shape how inherited traits show up.

• Both heredity and the environment work together to form a person’s behavior, personality, and abilities.
• Heredity decides the range of possible traits (called the reaction range).
• The environment decides the expression — how much of that inherited potential appears in the person.

If two children have similar genes for intelligence but one receives balanced food, love, and education, that child will likely perform better than the other, showing how both heredity and environment are necessary.

• Heredity gives us our potential.
• The environment decides how much of that potential is used.
• Both are interdependent, not separate.
• A better environment helps in expressing inherited abilities fully.