What is "communibiology"

Communibiology is a term referring to a research paradigm that emphasizes the “ neurobiological foundations of human communication behavior”. Communibiologists take the nature side of the nature versus nurture debate in communication development. The communibiological paradigm was developed by Beatty and McCroskey as an alternative to the nature side supporting social learning paradigm. They believe genetics to be far more important in the development of communication behavior than learning processes and the environment. These researchers do concede, however, that genetic factors are not the sole source of communication behavior. One accepted ratio is 20% influence of cultural, situational, or environmental stimuli and 80% influence of inborn, neurobiological structures on behavior.

A main idea of communibiology is that temperaments are based on genetics and not learned. Communication behavior is an expression of a person's temperament, though the behavior and the temperament do not completely correlate with one another. Identical genetics producing identical temperaments may result in non-identical communication behaviors because one's temperament can be expressed in various ways. The behaviors, though, will be very similar.