Temperament & Stress
The way one adapts and responds to environmental conditions is genetically predetermined. Environmental conditions provide the source of the response. Response to an environmental condition can make one feel good and instill a sense of well-being or feel bad and instill a sense of discomfort, stress, enrage, terror, sadness/depression, etc. One’s response to either is dependent on the cumulative nature of prior and present responses, which is genetically predetermined. Processes underlying these responses will influence the nature of future responses and, as demonstrated by Michael Meaney and colleagues in this section, the nature of one’s offspring’s responses.