ABSTRACT
One of Sandra Scarr’s many pioneering papers is her 1983 publication with Kathleen McCartney, which is her most highly cited paper and one of the most highly cited papers in developmental psychology. The title of the paper is “How People Make Their Own Environments: A Theory of Genotype → Environment Effects”:
We propose a theory of development in which experience is directed by genotypes. Genotypic differences are proposed to affect phenotypic differences, both directly and through experience, via three kinds of genotype → environment effects: A passive kind, through environments provided by biologically related parents; an evocative kind, through responses elicited by individuals from others; and an active kind through the selection of different environments by different people. (Scarr & McCartney, 1983, p. 424)
