Role of genes in personality
September 1st, 2009
Inductivist has a post up on the public perception of the role genes play in personality via the “GENEEXPS” variable. Though he saw a trend for Republicans to lean slightly toward more of a role for genes, I was struck by the minimal difference. I decided to look in more detail at this variable in the GSS, and again, was struck by the relative uniformity in attitude. An exception was with sex: women in this sample most definitely seem to believe that genes have more of a role in personality than men do. Also, the old are more gene-friendly than the young.
I put the 95th confidence intervals below because of the small sample sizes in some classes. The question was asked in 2004. The N was somewhat above 2200.
| Genes Play Major Role in Determining Personality | |||
| Low | High | ||
| White | 22.5 | 24.6 | 26.8 |
| Black | 23.2 | 28.3 | 33.4 |
| High School | 22.6 | 25.6 | 29.1 |
| Bachelor | 18.7 | 22.4 | 26.2 |
| Graduate | 18.5 | 25.2 | 31.8 |
| Bible Word of God | 21.5 | 27.9 | 34.3 |
| Bible Inspired Word | 21.7 | 26.6 | 31.5 |
| Bible Book of Fables | 15 | 20.8 | 26.6 |
| Protestant | 23.7 | 26.6 | 29.6 |
| Catholic | 20.5 | 25.2 | 29.9 |
| No Religion | 19.6 | 24.8 | 29.9 |
| Male | 19 | 21.8 | 24.6 |
| Female | 25.8 | 28.4 | 31 |
| 18-35 | 15.6 | 18.5 | 21.5 |
| 36-45 | 20.8 | 24.1 | 27.5 |
| 46-65 | 25.4 | 29.4 | 33.4 |
| 66- | 30.3 | 36.8 | 43.4 |
| Liberal | 18.2 | 24 | 29.8 |
| Moderate | 21.1 | 25.3 | 29.6 |
| Conservative | 22.6 | 27 | 31.4 |
| Democrat | 23.6 | 26.8 | 30.1 |
| Independent | 20.1 | 23.9 | 27.7 |
| Republican | 21.1 | 24.2 | 27.3 |
The youngest age group is depressing. It looks, however, like there might be an age effect going on. I hope so.
I’m surprised by the age results. The nadir of belief in HBD was somewhere in the 60s and 70s where anyone who said the word “gene” was branded as a Nazi. As bad as things are now, they were worse a generation ago. So why are the Millenials so much more anti-gene than the Boomers? My only thought is school indoctrination. When kids take “Social Studies”, they spend lots of time talking about other cultures, and no time talking about psychology, especially about human differences.
My only hope is that people may become wiser as they get older. It’s easy to believe that boys and girls are the same until you have kids.
Oh yeah, and besides the young, the people least likely to believe in genetic effects are people who believe that the Bible is a “Book of Fables”. Obviously, the secular left is quite large.
Women tend to pay more attention to the personalities of their kin, so they notice heritability more.
@Steve Sailer
I figured it might be because women read more pop psychology stuff like Psychology Today. Even the talk-show psychologists talk about genes.
“The youngest age group is depressing.”
Young people likes to believe that they are different from their parents. Logically, they are the people less prone to believe in a genetic (~= hereditary) personality.
“Though he saw a trend for Republicans to lean slightly toward more of a role for genes,..”
I’m not seeing that. Though the difference may not be statistically significant, the mean for Republicans is lower than the mean for Democrats. In contrast, the mean for conservatives is higher than the mean for moderates or liberals. Hmm.
tony, i think he looked at the 2000 election results. i ran the data and the confidence intervals basically overlap. so i don’t think there’s a difference at all.
@Steve Sailer
Might it also be, Steve, that the motivation for them noticing it more is that they are doing so because they care more than men do about the qualities that might end up in their children? And if so, I wonder what the general ranking of desirable qualities would be? I’d be particularly interested in where “cleverness” would be on the list. And if it is not high, I wonder if that would be because they don’t think it varies that much, and/or is not that inheritable?
Obviously there’s a lot of weasel room available in words like “major” and “determine”. I doubt if very many, if any, people would agree that genes have *no* influence, but it appears that the respondents are interpreting the question as making a very ambitious claim that can’t be squared with their own experience of family members/identical twins/etc. having very different personalities.
I.e. they’re reacting against the caricature form of genetic determinism, and not some more nuanced theory that they probably aren’t even aware exists. That’s my interpretation, anyway.
I’m struck by how close the percentages are.
Dear David Hume !
Have you researched (on this subject of BLANK SLATE) the opinion of Jews as special category ?
Your truly, Florida resident.
Having children appears to increase perception of the amount of influence genetics has on personality. Although it’s just speculation as to which way the causal arrow points, it’s not difficult to imagine why this tends to be the case. The percentage of women who put primacy on genes, by the number of children they’ve had:
0 – 22.4%
1 – 28.8%
2+ – 30.7%
And for men:
0 – 18.0%
1 – 19.1%
2+ – 25.4%
That’s interesting, I would have expected the second child to push the numbers back down (if the causal arrow is pointing from experience with children). Most families I know with multiple children, they have quite different personalities (with, obviously, similar genetics, unless it is a blended family).