The Problem of Non-Shared Environment in Behavioral Genetics

The role of non-shared environment (NSE) in the development of psychological traits is usually comparable with that of the genotype. However, no specific factors of NSE with significant impact on such traits have been discovered so far. We propose that the current failures in understanding the origin of NSE are at least partly due to the fact that behavioral genetics has left out one of the key sources of phenotypic variation. This source is the intrinsic stochasticity of molecular processes underlying individual development. At the critical stages of ontogeny, even minor fluctuations in gene expression or gene-product functioning can remarkably affect the phenotype; this role is experimentally proved in multiple model organisms. In the present paper, several mechanisms of molecular stochasticity, which could affect the development of psychological traits, are discussed. We propose to distinguish external NSE (any external differences) and internal NSE (intrinsic molecular stochasticity). Available data indicate that the impact of external NSE is likely to be low, which makes the presumptive role of internal NSE rather decisive. If our assumption is true, the paradigm of behavioral genetics should be revised, and comprehensive analysis of molecular stochasticity during individual development is strongly required.