Nurtured Genetics: Prenatal Testing and the Anchoring of Genetic Expectancies

If polygenic risk scores for traits are to be provided to parents before—as opposed to after—a child is born, these scores will provide the very first units of information upon which parents will begin to form an impression of their child. On the basis of this distinction, we draw from social psychological research to formulate three hypotheses that build on each other in order to introduce the “Nurtured Genetics” effect along with the psychosocial implications it entails.

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