Biology, Ideology, and Epistemology: How Do We Know Political Attitudes Are Inherited and Why Should We Care?

Smith, Kevin B.; Alford, John R.; Hatemi, Peter K.; Eaves, Lindon J.; Funk, Carolyn L.; Hibbing, John R.

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00560.x

Cited by 89 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The OpenMx software was used to estimate these models. Smith, et al 2012). The measures from the ANES are roughly comparable to the measures in the Minnesota Study.…”

Section: Interest In Politicssupporting

confidence: 48%

The Genetic Basis of Political Sophistication

2012

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Political sophistication is a concept that encompasses political reasoning, the coherence of people's issue attitudes, and their knowledge of political processes. To what extent is political sophistication affected by genes and environments? Do these distinct but related measures of sophistication share a common genetic structure? We analyze survey data collected from participants in the Minnesota Twin Registry to estimate influences of genes and environments on variables used to measure political sophistication. Additive genetic factors explain 48–76% of the variation in educational attainment, political interest, and political knowledge, while dominance genetics influence 28% of the variance of ideological consistency. Multivariate analyses show that, although these measures share common genetic and unique environmental factors to a modest extent, much of the variance is explained by specific genetic and unique environmental factors. Ideological consistency appears to be mostly distinct from the other measures, as it is strongly accounted for by unique environmental influences.

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“…The OpenMx software was used to estimate these models. Smith, et al 2012). The measures from the ANES are roughly comparable to the measures in the Minnesota Study.…”

Section: Interest In Politicssupporting

confidence: 48%

The Genetic Basis of Political Sophistication

2012

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“…have the same influence on the traits being studied, regardless of whether the twins are MZs or DZs. Though MZ twins may be treated more similarly than same-sex DZ twins (e.g., more likely to be dressed alike), what is important is that this type of treatment or shared experience will not affect the trait in question -which seems to be the case for political and social attitudes that will be examined here (Smith, Alford, Hatemi, Eaves, Funk and Hibbing 2012). What varies in the model, then, is the number of genes shared by the twin pairs.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using structural equation modeling, the unit of analysis is the twin pair, and the comparison of the variance decomposed into genetic (A), shared environment (C) and unique environment (E) components from MZ to DZ twins is akin to the between-groups and within-groups comparison in an ANOVA (Medland and Hatemi 2009;Smith et al 2012 the best-fitting model is the model which utilizes the least parameters without significantly reducing the model fit when compared to models which leave the parameters unconstrained. In other words, the best-fitting model is the model that is most parsimonious while still fitting the data.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Political Attitudes and Religiosity Share a Genetic Path?

Friesen

Ksiazkiewicz

2014

Polit Behav

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Social scientists have long recognized and sought to explain a connection between religious and political beliefs. Our research challenges the prevalent view that religion and politics constitute separate but related belief sets with a conceptual model that suggests the correlation between the two may be partially explained by an underlying psychological construct reflecting first principle beliefs on social organization. Moreover, we also push this challenge further by considering whether part of the relationship between political and religious beliefs is the result of shared genetic influences, which would suggest that a shared biological predisposition, or set of biological predispositions, underlies these attitudes. Using a classic twin design on a sample of American adults, we demonstrate that certain religious, political, and first principle beliefs can be explained by genetic and unique environmental components, and that the correlation between these three trait structures is primarily due to a common genetic path. As predicted, this relationship is found to hold for social ideology, but not for economic ideology. These findings provide evidence that the overlap between the religious and the political in the American context may in part be due to underlying principles regarding how to understand and organize society and that these principles may be adopted to satisfy biologically-influenced psychological needs.Key words: Behavior genetics; religion and politics; twin study; ideologyThe data employed in this project is publicly available and collected with the financial support of the National Science Foundation in the form of SES-0721378, PI: John R. Hibbing; Co-PIs: John R. Alford, Lindon J. Eaves, Carolyn L. Funk, Peter K. Hatemi, and Kevin B. Smith, and with the cooperation of the Minnesota Twin Registry at the University of Minnesota, Robert Krueger and Matthew McGue, Directors. Rather than thinking about religious beliefs influencing political attitudes through an intentional cognitive process (e.g. The Bible says homosexuality is wrong, therefore I oppose gay marriage) or political attitudes leading to changes in religious affiliation upon entering adulthood (Putnam and Campbell 2012), this study examines whether these belief systems overlap at least in part because they both represent an individual's preferences for "bedrock principles of group life," such as a preference for maintaining traditional moral values in society (Smith, Oxley, Hibbing, Alford and Hibbing 2011b). Our research challenges the prevalent view that religion and politics constitute separate but related belief sets with a conceptual model that explains both political and religious beliefs as rooted in the same underlying psychological construct reflecting first principle beliefs on social organization. Moreover, we also push this challenge further by considering whether part of the relationship between political and religious beliefs is the result of shared genetic influences, which would suggest that a shared predispo...

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“…The overall response rate was 54% (N = 3,616). The US population was recruited from the Minnesota Twin Study, detailed further in this special issue (for further details see Smith et al, 2012). The US study was originally conducted in July-December 2008, with a second follow up to increase the number of dizygotic twin pairs from July 13 to October 30, 2009.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritability in Political Interest and Efficacy across Cultures: Denmark and the United States

et al. 2012

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Interest in politics is important for a host of political behaviors and beliefs. Yet little is known about where political interest comes from. Most studies exploring the source of political interest focus on parental influences, economic status, and opportunity. Here, we investigate an alternative source: genetic transmission. Using two twin samples, one drawn from Denmark and the other from USA, we find that there is a high degree of heritability in political interest. Furthermore, we show that interest in politics and political efficacy share the same underlying, latent genetic factor. These findings add to the growing body of literature that documents political behaviors and attitudes as not simply the result of socialization, but also as part of an individual's genetically informed disposition.

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Biology, Ideology, and Epistemology: How Do We Know Political Attitudes Are Inherited and Why Should We Care?

Cited by 89 publications

References 60 publications

The Genetic Basis of Political Sophistication

The Genetic Basis of Political Sophistication

Do Political Attitudes and Religiosity Share a Genetic Path?

Heritability in Political Interest and Efficacy across Cultures: Denmark and the United States

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