Common Heritable Effects Underpin Concerns Over Norm Maintenance and In-Group Favoritism: Evidence From Genetic Analyses of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Traditionalism

G.J. Lewis, T.C. Bates

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Research has shown that in-group favoritism is associated with concerns over the maintenance of social norms. Here we present two studies examining whether genetic factors underpin this association. A classical twin design was used to decompose phenotypic variance into genetic and environmental components in two studies. Study 1 used 812 pairs of adult U.S. twins from the nationally representative MIDUS II sample. Study 2 used 707 pairs of middle-age twins from the Minnesota Twin Registry. In-group favoritism was measured with scales tapping preferences for in-group (vs. out-group) individuals; norm concerns were measured with the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire-Traditionalism (Study 1) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Study 2) scales. In Study 1, heritable effects underlying traditionalism were moderately (c. 35%) overlapping with the genetic variance underpinning in-group favoritism. In Study 2, heritable influences on RWA were entirely shared with the heritable effects on in-group favoritism. Moreover, we observed that Big Five Openness shared common genetic links to both RWA and in-group favoritism. These results suggest that, at the genetic level, in-group favoritism is linked with a system related to concern over normative social practices, which is, in turn, partially associated with trait Openness.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)297-309
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Personality
Volume82
Issue number4
Early online date12 Aug 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2014

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • favoritism
  • twin
  • heritability
  • norms

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Common Heritable Effects Underpin Concerns Over Norm Maintenance and In-Group Favoritism: Evidence From Genetic Analyses of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Traditionalism'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this