| 1. |
- Silventoinen, Karri, et al.
(författare)
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Education in twins and their parents across birth cohorts over 100 years : an individual-level pooled analysis of 42 twin cohorts
- 2017
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Ingår i: Twin Research and Human Genetics. - Stockholm : Karolinska Institutet, Dept of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. - 1832-4274 .- 1839-2628.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Whether monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins differ from each other in a variety of phenotypes is important for genetic twin modeling and for inferences made from twin studies in general. We analyzed whether there were differences in individual, maternal and paternal education between MZ and DZ twins in a large pooled dataset. Information was gathered on individual education for 218,362 adult twins from 27 twin cohorts (53% females; 39% MZ twins), and on maternal and paternal education for 147,315 and 143,056 twins respectively, from 28 twin cohorts (52% females; 38% MZ twins). Together, we had information on individual or parental education from 42 twin cohorts representing 19 countries. The original education classifications were transformed to education years and analyzed using linear regression models. Overall, MZ males had 0.26 (95% CI [0.21, 0.31]) years and MZ females 0.17 (95% CI [0.12, 0.21]) years longer education than DZ twins. The zygosity difference became smaller in more recent birth cohorts for both males and females. Parental education was somewhat longer for fathers of DZ twins in cohorts born in 1990-1999 (0.16 years, 95% CI [0.08, 0.25]) and 2000 or later (0.11 years, 95% CI [0.00, 0.22]), compared with fathers of MZ twins. The results show that the years of both individual and parental education are largely similar in MZ and DZ twins. We suggest that the socio-economic differences between MZ and DZ twins are so small that inferences based upon genetic modeling of twin data are not affected.
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| 2. |
- Oskarsson, Sven, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Education and Social Trust : Testing a Causal Hypothesis Using the Discordant Twin Design
- 2017
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Ingår i: Political Psychology. - : Wiley. - 0162-895X .- 1467-9221. ; 38:3, s. 515-531
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of the clearest results in previous studies on social trust is the robust positive relationship with educational attainment. The most common interpretation is that education has a causal effect on social trust. The theoretical argument and empirical results in this article suggest a different interpretation. We argue that common preadult factors such as cognitive abilities and personality traits rooted in genes and early-life family environment may confound the relationship between educational attainment and social trust. We provide new evidence on this question by utilizing the quasi-experiment of twinning. By looking at the relationship between education and social trust within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs, we are able to avoid potential confounders rooted in genetic factors and common environmental influences because the monozygotic twins share both. The results suggest that when controlling for such familial factors the estimated effects of education on social trust are close to zero and far from reaching statistical significance. Further analyses show that the relationship between education and social trust largely is driven by common genetic factors.
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| 3. |
- Dawes, Christopher T., et al.
(författare)
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Linking Genes and Political Orientations: Testing the Cognitive Ability as Mediator Hypothesis
- 2015
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Ingår i: Political Psychology. - : Wiley: 24 months. - 1467-9221 .- 0162-895X. ; 36:6, s. 649-665
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent research has demonstrated that genetic differences explain a sizeable fraction of the variance in political orientations, but little is known about the pathways through which genes might affect political preferences. In this article, we use a uniquely assembled dataset of almost 1,000 Swedish male twin pairs containing detailed information on cognitive ability and political attitudes in order to further examine the genetic and environmental causes of political orientations. Our study makes three distinct contributions to our understanding of the etiology of political orientations: (1) we report heritability estimates across different dimensions of political ideology; (2) we show that cognitive ability and political orientations are related; and (3) we provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive ability mediates part of the genetic influence on political orientations. These findings provide important clues about the nature of the complex pathways from molecular genetic variation to political orientations.
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| 4. |
- Loewen, Peter John, et al.
(författare)
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The heritability of moral standards for everyday dishonesty
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. - : Elsevier. - 0167-2681. ; 93, s. 363-366
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous research on the acceptability of dishonest actions has focused on the role of social norms and internal reward mechanisms. Using a sample of over 2000 Swedish adult twins, this manuscript examines whether there exists another source that is driving differences in perceptions of the acceptability of dishonest actions: genetic variation. We find that much of the variation in perceptions of the acceptability of dishonest actions is attributable to genetic variation between individuals.
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| 5. |
- Mosing, Miriam A., et al.
(författare)
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Heritability of proneness for psychological flow experiences
- 2012
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Ingår i: Personality and Individual Differences. - : PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD. - 0191-8869 .- 1873-3549. ; 53:5, s. 699-704
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Flow is a subjective experience of high but effortless attention, loss of self-awareness, control, and enjoyment that can occur during active performance of challenging tasks. Proneness to experience flow is associated with personality, specifically with low neuroticism and high conscientiousness. We investigated genetic and non-genetic influences on flow proneness in 444 adult twin pairs. Data were collected using an on-line administration of the Swedish Flow Proneness Questionnaire, which includes separate scales for flow proneness in three major domains of life: work, maintenance, and leisure. We found moderate (.29-.35) heritabilities for the flow scales. Twin correlations as well as multivariate modeling suggested non-additive genetic influences. Genetic influences were almost entirely shared for the three flow scales and genetic correlations between the scales were very high (.81-.97), suggesting that the same genes influence flow proneness independently of domain. Non-shared environmental influences, in contrast, were largely specific to each flow scale. We conclude that an individual's general proneness to experience flow is influenced by the same genetic factors regardless of domain, and these may be associated with personality traits that are conducive to flow. In addition, specific environmental factors appear to be of importance for within-individual differences in flow proneness in different domains. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 6. |
- Oskarsson, Sven, et al.
(författare)
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The Genetic Origins of the Relationship between Psychological Traits and Social Trust
- 2012
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Ingår i: Twin Research and Human Genetics. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 1832-4274 .- 1839-2628. ; 15:1, s. 21-33
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent studies have shown that trusting attitudes and behavior are biologically influenced. Focusing on the classic trust game, it has been demonstrated that oxytocin increases trust and that humans are endowed with genetic variation that influences their behavior in the game. Moreover, several studies have shown that a large share of the variation in survey responses to trust items is accounted for by an additive genetic component. Against this backdrop, this article makes two important contributions. First, utilizing a unique sample of more than 2,000 complete Swedish twin pairs, we provide further evidence of the heritability of social trust. Our estimates of the additive genetic component in social trust were consistent across the sexes - .33 for males and .39 for females - and are similar to the results reported in earlier studies. Secondly, we show that social trust is phenotypically related to three psychological traits - extraversion, personal control, and intelligence - and that genetic factors account for most of these correlations. Jointly, these psychological factors share around 30% of the genetic influence on social trust both for males and females. Future studies should further explore the possible causal pathways between genes and trust using panel data on both psychological traits and social trust.
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| 7. |
- Cesarini, David, et al.
(författare)
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The behavioral genetics of behavioral anomalies
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A number of recent papers have examined the environmental and genetic sources of individual differences in economic and financial decision making. Here we contribute to this burgeoning literature by extending it to a number of key behavioral anomalies that are thought to be of importance for consumption, savings, and portfolio selection decisions. Using survey-based evidence from more than 11,000 Swedish twins, we demonstrate that a number of anomalies such as, for instance, the conjunction fallacy, default bias, and loss aversion are moderately heritable. In contrast, our estimates imply that variation in common environment explains only a small share of individual differences. We also report suggestive evidence in favor of a shared genetic architecture between cognitive reflection and a subset of the studied anomalies. These results offer some support for the proposition that the heritable variation in behavioral anomalies is partly mediated by genetic variance in cognitive ability. Taken together with previous findings, our results underline the importance of genetic differences as a source of heterogeneity in economic and financial decision making.
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