hereditarianism

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Related to hereditarianism: eugenics

he·red·i·tar·i·an·ism

(hə-rĕd′ĭ-târ′ē-ə-nĭz′əm)

The doctrine or school that regards heredity as more important than environmental influences in determining intelligence and behavior.

he·red′i·tar′i·an (hə-rĕd′ĭ-târ′ē-ən) adj. & n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hereditarianism

(həˌrɛdɪˈtɛərɪəˌnɪzəm)

(Psychology) psychol a school of thought that emphasizes the influence of heredity in the determination of human behaviour. Compare environmentalism

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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Noun

hereditarianism - the philosophical doctrine that heredity is more important than environment in determining intellectual growth

philosophical doctrine, philosophical theory - a doctrine accepted by adherents to a philosophy

environmentalism - the philosophical doctrine that environment is more important than heredity in determining intellectual growth

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Thus, paradoxically, as scientific racism weakened as an explanation for Euro-American social development, hereditarianism hardened as a rationale for the backwardness and unassimiability of the nonwhite races" (p.

Embodying a "new" color line: racism, anti-immigrant sentiment and racial identities in the "postracial" era

And apart from the authoritarian social and political views commonly held in the German professoriate often linked with this hereditarianism, psychiatrists, like physicians in general, were also heavily influenced by the eugenic thought, social Darwinism, and racism endemic to Germany during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The soother of evil pains: Asclepius and Freud

(16) In the natural sciences, over the same time period, radical hereditarianism was dismissed and scientists called for "a whole new line of inquiry based on the simple question of how heredity and environment functioned in specific situations," an inquiry which accepted that nature and nurture interacted and were interrelated, rather than assuming that they were independent influences, Cravens, 270.

Subjectivity and the possibility of change in the novels of Marilynne Robinson

the profusion of cynicism and contempt, the denigration of financial success, the honoring of self-esteem over self-respect, the decline in academic performance, the rise of the divorce rate, sex on television, politicians beholden to special interests, the rejection of objectivity in journalism, disrespect for authority figures, and, most importantly to Ruggiero, the rise of Progressivism in American political life) on the adoption of two views of human nature, which he identifies as Hereditarianism, a social Darwinist perspective that views biology as destiny and views most people as deficient in intelligence, and Humanistic Psychology, which elevated feelings over reason and placed the locus of authority within the individual.

Corrupted culture; rediscovering America's enduring principles, values, and common sense

The opening paragraphs of Look Homeward, Angel also allude to another important theory during Wolfe's era about the cause of disease: hereditarianism. The references to Gant family history, the role of chance, and the resulting "seed of our destruction" point directly at the influence of heredity.

"A flash of fire": illness and the body in Look Homeward, Angel

Rather than narratives stressing the decline of scientific racism in the 1930s and the death of hereditarianism in the wake of Nazi atrocities, scholars have stressed the continuity of eugenic concerns in the pre- and post-1945 eras.

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