Why Am I?

What determines our personality, health, wealth and happiness? In 1972 the Otago University Medical School embarked on the ultimate nature/nurture test, to study 1037 babies for their entire lives. This episode introduces the study of all the children born in one year in a New Zealand university city. It shows how several breakthrough observations from this study have been reproduced in other western countries.

What is it that makes kids run off the rails, and what can be done about it? Why do some teens become career criminals, while others come right?

The study shows how genes alone are a bad predictor. But when genes are combined with another factor like environment or drugs then the predictions are very strong.

What determines our personality, health, wealth and happiness? In 1972 the Otago University Medical School embarked on the ultimate nature/nurture test, to study 1037 babies for their entire lives.