"The flow of small experiences in everyday life provides myriad testing and training grounds that, by revealing and reinforcing genetic proclivities, catalyzes and consolidates our most basic, most general traits (intelligence, personality) in childhood."

Linda S. Gottfredson

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"The 'genes-drive-experience' version of nature-nurture partnership theory (Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & McGue, 1996) emphasizes how people’s genetic individuality shapes their experiences. Genetically distinct individuals evoke and create different environments for themselves[.] ... Scarr’s 'niche-seeking' version of the theory (Scarr, 1997; Scarr & McCartney, 1983) emphasizes the cumulative life-course ramifications of ceaselessly tending toward experiences that comport better with one’s genetic individuality, that is, the pursuit of a congruent ecological 'niche' or place in the world. ... After all, our environments are typically other people, and we constantly nudge and activate, accept and reject, these others in our encounters."

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"Behavioral geneticists often describe the personal events and circumstances of our lives as our 'extended phenotypes,' that is, as factors seemingly outside ourselves but actually rooted partly in our own genes."

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"Because our environments do not carry our genes, they correlate with our genotypes only because we select, create, and act on those environments."

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"An important difference between the development of life niches and of general traits such as intelligence, however, is that general traits develop relatively independently of cultural variation. In contrast, individual differences in life roles, activities, and niches — our extended phenotypes — are less heritable, on average, because cultures channel and constrain the use of even the most heritable traits."

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"people certainly do seem to differ in the degree of person-environment fit they achieve." 

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"some individuals are more likely than others to attain congruent life niches."

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"People differ greatly in their inclination to exploit the cultural pathways that are, in fact, available to them."

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"Rather, as we enter and leave childhood, it is increasingly left up to us to scan the horizon for possible activities and reference groups, to explore and experiment with the unfamiliar, and to discover what might activate or resonate with our genetic proclivities."

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"Initiative may open doors, but stepping through can be difficult. If nothing else, moving toward a more compatible niche means moving away from a birth niche. Rejecting and shedding key elements of one’s life to that point, whether they be activities, daily rhythms, ways of thinking, or friends, can be difficult no matter what the potential benefits may be. Moving away from poor-fitting birth niches may be all the more difficult to contemplate if individuals have worked hard to adjust to them, perhaps by suppressing or twisting themselves to fit in."

"However, some temperaments facilitate this niche-shifting, self-development process more than others. Individuals who are more active, imaginative, self-confident, or “open to experience” (one of the big five personality dimensions) tend to sample more of the possible experiences that a culture provides. Individuals who are chronically passive, pessimistic, or fearful or who for other reasons have less taste for exploring, experimenting, and deviating from the crowd will end up sampling less of what life offers and of what they could be. They will learn less about themselves, develop fewer interests, recognize fewer talents, less often challenge inappropriate expectations and guidance, and venture less far from their birth niches toward more congruent ones. Failing to exploit their environments, they remain underdeveloped and risk unnecessary circumscription and compromise.

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"Beginning at birth, the self-directed individuation proceeds mostly outside conscious awareness. Our genotypes operate more like whispers than shouts, nudges than shoves, and their messages are hard to distinguish from the other influences on our behavior. Genetic propensities may typically provide only faint directional signals and seldom decide any of the single actions among the myriad constituting daily life. But no matter how faint they may seem at any single moment, those signals are the most constant and consistent directional force in our behavior and thereby become discernible by the patterns they create. Its emergent pattern of effects gradually makes our inner compass somewhat available to conscious reflection."

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"In short, it is only with the dawning and cultivation of self-knowledge that individuals become more the director and less the directed in their own lives."

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"Only when the fit between individuals and their actual or expected environments becomes uncomfortable are they likely to envision or seek a more congenial environment. The shift is likely to be more dramatic, however, when individuals encounter something new (for example, a particular hero, book, activity) to which they resonate powerfully[.]" 

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"[E]ven when people recognize that they face a poor fit, they differ in their ability and willingness to seek more congenial circumstances." 

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"People shape the environments they inhabit and the lives they lead to a much greater degree than they imagine. This is not to say that individuals are responsible for all the good and bad that befalls them, only that they have considerable leverage for improving their circumstances, their lives, themselves. We shape our selves by choosing with whom and what to surround ourselves or avoid and by the activities in which we immerse ourselves or refuse to participate."

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"Therefore, help counselees to understand which kinds of people, activities, and settings bring out the best or worst in themselves, that is, which environments make it easier or harder for them to be who they want to be, to act in the ways they wish, to evoke positive responses from intimates."

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"It is empowering to recognize that one has many opportunities to shape one’s self and life by changing even the little things—perhaps especially the little things—in one’s environment. Put another way, counselors may be able to foster personal development, not just by 'treating' the individual in question but by having the person 'treat' (modify) their own environments."