How heritable are human traits like personality, height, mental health, physical health, education, religiosity, and conservatism? (h^2 estimates)

Here's my attempt to compile the heritabilities (in the narrow sense of h^2) for many different interesting human traits. Before you read this, however, I recommend you read our piece on the Missing Heritability Problem which provides important context for interpreting this information. We'll first look at estimated heritabilities from five categories: body, mental health, physical health, cognitive/mind-related traits, and personality (including the Big Five personality traits). ...
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Why “nature plus nurture” is sometimes the wrong way to think

People who sit here and then chat with someone might get happier…but whether they sit here in the first place probably also depends on their personality and their baseline mood. Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.
It's common to try to explain things as either due to nature OR nurture. Or, at best, we say: some percentage of the variation in outcome is due to genes, and some percentage is due to the environment. It's important to remember, though, that outcomes can be a complex interaction between the two. Consider this: Our genetically-influenced traits impact what environments we seek out and find ourselves in. For instance, risk-taking seems to have moderate heritability, and it in...
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