Culture and biology in human communication: Toward a multi-causal model

Because the relative influence of genetic and environmental components vari es depending on the specific genes and environments under consideration and their specific interactions, debates over the relative importance of natur e vs. nurture are misguided. Analysis of the concept of heritability indica tes the failure of these statistical formulations to answer the "gene vs. e nvironment" question. Recent efforts to identify genetically based biologic al causes as the primary sources of individual variations in conmunication fall prey to these failures. In place of a "communibiological" paradigm for communication, a multi-causal model is suggested in order to attend to the complex and variable interactions among the many factors contributing to c ommunication behaviors, including genes, gene products, physiological and e nvironmental inputs, developmental processes, established biological struct ures, cognitive processes and inputs, cultural processes, social structural inputs, and codes.