Tópico: Determinação genética da orientação político-econômica

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Evidence for the construct validity and heritability of the Wilson–Patterson conservatism scale: a reared-apart twins study of social attitudes

Thomas J. Bouchard Jr., Nancy L. Segal, Auke Tellegen, Matt McGue, Margaret Keyes, Robert Krueger


Abstract

A 28 item version of the Wilson–Patterson Attitude Inventory was administered to 345 participants
(twins, spouses, friends, and others) in the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. An overall con-
servatism measure demonstrated impressive construct validity. It had strong convergent validity, demon-
strated by correlations of 0.72 and 0.58 with the Altemeyer Right Wing Authoritarianism scale and the
Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) Traditionalism Scale, respectively. It also had strong
discriminant validity, being largely uncorrelated with the other 10 MPQ Scales and WAIS Full Scale IQ.
Heritabilities were calculated from fitting models to the variance–covariance matricies based on 54 pairs of
monozygotic (MZ) and 46 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) twins reared apart. Conservatism demonstrated sig-
nificant and sizeable genetic influence (h2=0.56), replicating the results reported in the Virginia 30,000
study of ordinary twins and family members and those of a large Australian twin study.


Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?

JOHN R. ALFORD, Rice University
CAROLYN L. FUNK, Virginia Commonwealth University
JOHN R. HIBBING, University of Nebraska

We test the possibility that political attitudes and behaviors are the result of both environ-
mental and genetic factors. Employing standard methodological approaches in behavioral
genetics—–specifically, comparisons of the differential correlations of the attitudes of monozy-
gotic twins and dizygotic twins—–we analyze data drawn from a large sample of twins in the United States,
supplemented with findings from twins in Australia. The results indicate that genetics plays an important
role in shaping political attitudes and ideologies but a more modest role in forming party identification;
as such, they call for finer distinctions in theorizing about the sources of political attitudes. We conclude
by urging political scientists to incorporate genetic influences, specifically interactions between genetic
heritability and social environment, into models of political attitude formation.


Aposto que também encontrariam uma alta correlação do cromossomo Y com cabelos curtos em alguns países.