The focus of this paper is to explore the diversity of people's ideas about inherited disorders. I propose a theoretical model that incorporates a number of variables and attempts to reconcile the ways that individuals adopt and integrate lay and scientific aspects of knowledge. This model serves to make links between socially shared knowledge and scientific knowledge through the proposition of the modified Piaget's concept of syncretism of explanation; the model also makes links between two different domains, knowledge and the “family story of the disease.” Although it has not been tested, the model might serve as a heuristic tool, giving rise to a relevant research hypothesis to be addressed in future research.
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