are you a dandelion or an orchid?

Blog Challenge Day 26

Most of yall know by now that I have applied to graduate programs for Psychology and hope to eventually get my PhD. I'm in the midst of the hearing back/interview process now, so send good vibes my way ;-)

Even before these plans, though, I've always found Psychology research fascinating. It's a field that (IMO) is really interesting and applicable to the lay reader when information is presented in a user-friendly manner. The underlying studies tend to be pretty esoteric, but the findings and takeaways don't have to be. Case in point...My brother recently sent me this really interesting Psych article from The Atlantic: The Science of Success. At a very basic level, the article (and studies on which it is based) discusses some fascinating work looking at how different people struggle/fail or thrive depending on their environments. Bottom line: similar to tending flowers, some of us are like dandelions who can do pretty well in a wide range of circumstances. Others of us are like delicate orchids, who will struggle and wilt without proper care...or can flourish if given some good old TLC.

Here are more details for those of you interested...and if you think my summary is long, you probably shouldn't try to read the full article!

A research team has been testing a radical new hypothesis about how genes shape behavior. In particular, they were interested in a new interpretation of one of the most important and influential ideas in recent psychiatric and personality research: that certain variants of key behavioral genes make people more vulnerable to certain mood, psychiatric, or personality disorders. In other words, people may be genetically predisposed to certain conditions. This hypothesis, often called the “stress diathesis” or “genetic vulnerability” model, has come to saturate psychiatry and behavioral science. Researchers have identified a gene variants that can increase a person’s susceptibility to depression, anxiety, ADHD, heightened risk-taking, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors, and other problems—if, and only if, the person carrying the variant suffers a traumatic or stressful childhood or faces particularly trying experiences later in life. Plain English: many psychic and behavioral problems are seen as products not of nature or nurture but of complex “gene-environment interactions.” As the article explains, "Your genes don’t doom you to these disorders. But if you have “bad” versions of certain genes and life treats you ill, you’re more prone to them."

Investigating this subject, the research team focused on the 25 percent (of a sample of 2,408 children) rated highest by their parents (and confirmed by observation) in externalizing behaviors (plain english: "acting out"). In an attempt to change the kids’ behavior, members of the research team visited each of 120 families six times over eight months; filmed the mother and child in everyday activities, including some requiring obedience or cooperation; and then edited the film into teachable moments to show to the mothers. A similar group of high-externalizing children received no intervention.

To the researchers’ delight, the intervention worked. The moms, watching the videos, learned to spot cues they’d missed before, or to respond differently to cues they’d seen but had reacted to poorly. The bad behaviors dropped. A year after the intervention ended, the toddlers who’d received it had reduced their externalizing scores by more than 16 percent, while a nonintervention control group improved only about 10 percent (as expected, due to modest gains in self-control with age).

Recently, an alternate hypothesis has emerged, suggesting that it’s a mistake to understand these “risk” genes only as liabilities. Basically, these bad genes can create dysfunction in unfavorable contexts, but they can also enhance function in favorable contexts. Thus, the genetic sensitivities to negative experience that the vulnerability hypothesis has identified, are just the downside of a bigger phenomenon: a heightened genetic sensitivity to all experience.

This hypothesis was conceptualized by another set of researchers in an article discussing “dandelion” and "orchid" children. Dandelion children—equivalent to our “normal” or “healthy” children, with “resilient” genes—do pretty well almost anywhere, whether raised in the equivalent of a sidewalk crack or a well-tended garden. In contrast, “orchid” children will wilt if ignored or maltreated but bloom spectacularly with greenhouse care.

What I found most interesting, is the application of this notion to family life. The research suggests that behavioral diversity - having both dandelion and orchid kids - greatly raises a family’s chance of succeeding, over time and in any given environment. (The article also discusses this with regard to the human population in a more general sense.The orchid hypothesis accepts that certain gene variants underlie some of humankind’s most grievous problems: despair, alienation, cruelties both petty and epic...But it adds that these same troublesome genes play a critical role in our species’ astounding success.) Dandelions in a provide an underlying stability. The less-numerous orchids, meanwhile, may falter in some environments but can excel in those that suit them. Together, the steady dandelions and the mercurial orchids offer an adaptive flexibility that neither can provide alone. Together, they open a path to otherwise unreachable individual and collective achievements. I'd like to think that this dynamic plays out (will play out) in my own family. In many ways I think my (5) siblings and I are still young enough that our lives are yet to be fully shaped, but based on our lives so far, I would agree that certain siblings' stability helps to support and even galvanize the others who may be - as I like to say - on different life plans.

With all this in mind, the researchers from the above study with children began to look at the genetic makeup of the children in their experiment. In particular, they wanted to see whether kids with a risk allele for ADHD and externalizing behaviors would respond as much to positive environments as to negative. Both the vulnerability hypothesis and the orchid hypothesis predict that in the control group the kids with a risk allele should do worse than those with a protective one. And they did—though only slightly. Over the course of 18 months, the genetically “protected” kids reduced their externalizing scores by 11 percent, while the “at-risk” kids cut theirs by 7 percent. Both gains were modest ones that the researchers expected would come with increasing age.

The real test, however, came in the group that received intervention. According to the vulnerability model, those who received intervention should improve less than their counterparts with the protective allele...based on this model, the modest upgrade that the intervention created in their environment wouldn’t offset their general vulnerability. BUT the toddlers with the risk allele saw drastic improvements - cutting their externalizing scores by almost 27 percent. Meanwhile, the protective-allele kids cut theirs by just 12 percent (improving only slightly on the 11 percent managed by the protective-allele population in the control group). The upside effect in the intervention group, in other words, was far larger than the downside effect in the control group. Plain English: Risk alleles really can create not just risk but possibility.


Soooo....for those of you that made it all the way to the end (lol), what do you think of this? Does this seem applicable to everyday life? Would you consider yourself to be a dandelion or an orchid? Can you spot these two types in the people around you? Does this change the way you think about them? If you're a dandelion, how can you be more supportive to the orchids in your life? If you're an orchid, what can you do to foster a "greenhouse-like" environment, versus being out with the weeds?

Btw, is it just me or is Google Buzz dangerous (in terms of productivity) during the workday...?

today's *big chune* is some salsaaaa to get your weekend started right. I actually hate Marc Anthony when he sings in english, but his salsa stuff in GOOOOOD! I am a BIG fan of latin music - especially salsa and bachata. I may not understand every single word they say, but I actually surprise myself with how much I am able to follow. This song is a duet with India - another of my favorite Salsa artists. I didn't realize how old this song is until I saw this video...i am MAD at marc anthony's hair...hottttt messssss. Oh well, still a big chune!!


Happy Friday! :-D