Genetic influences on flow proneness and its relationship to behavioral inhibition andlocus of control

• 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 and has been shown to be associated with personality, specifically with low neuroticism and high conscientiousness. The first study aimed to investigate geneticand non-genetic influences on flow-proneness (FP) in 444 adulttwin-pairs. Our second study further explored the genetic architecture of the relationship between flow-proneness and personality, inparticular behavioral inhibition (BI) and locus of control (LoC) - both highly related to neuroticism and conscientious. All three traits(i.e. FP, BI, and LoC) are influenced by dopaminergic neural systems. Data were collected using an on-line administration of the Swedish Flow Proneness Questionnaire (assessing FP in three majordomains of life: work, maintenance, and leisure), the Adult Measureof Behavioral Inhibition, and the Locus of Control Scale. We found moderate (0.29–0.35) heritabilities for the flow scales. Genetic influences were almost entirely shared for the three flow scales and genetic correlations between the scales were very high (0.81–0.97), suggesting that the same genes influence FP independently of domain. Non-shared environmental influences were largely specific to each flow scale. The relationship between FP and the two personality traits (BI and LoC) was entirely explained by shared genetic influences. However, this shared genetic factor only explained a small part of the genetic influences on BI and LoC. Accordingly, genetic correlations were only moderate ranging between 0.33 and 0.42 with the environmental correlations being close to zero. We conclude that an individual’s general proneness to experience flow is influenced by the same genetic factors regardless of domain, while specific environmental factors appear to be of importance for within-individual differences between domains. The relationship between FP with LoC and BI, respectively, is entirely due to shared genes.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Tillämpad psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Applied Psychology (hsv//eng)

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