Heritability of various aspects of cognitive development is very high {e.g., around 70 percent for IQ} in kids from high–socioeconomic status {SES} families but is only around 10 percent in low-SES kids. Thus, higher SES allows the full range of genetic influences on cognition to flourish, whereas lower-SES settings restrict them. In other words, genes are nearly irrelevant to cognitive development if you're growing up in awful poverty-poverty's adverse effects trump the genetics.
( Robert M. Sapolsky )
[ Behave: The Biology of Humans ]
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