The Generality of Personality Heritability (original) (raw)
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Psihologijske teme, 2017
The aim of this study is to simplify the issue of the concept of heritability, to give an introduction to the behavioral genetic theory and methods, as well as to give an overview of the current knowledge about heritability of personality and the quantitative and molecular genetic approach to estimate heritability. Following that, results on heritability of personality are summarized. In addition, we reanalyzed all available behavioral genetic studies published before 2010, which were included in Vukasović and Bratko (2015) meta-analysis, to estimate the correlations between different family members: 1) monozygotic twins reared together; 2) monozygotic twins reared apart; 3) dizygotic twins reared together; 4) dizygotic twins reared apart; 5) mother and offspring; 6) father and offspring. Estimates of the family resemblance for personality were .54 from intraclass correlations for twin pairs reared together, .45 for intraclass correlations for monozygotic twin pairs reared apart, an...
Personality development across the lifespan: Theory, research, and application
APA handbook of clinical geropsychology, Vol. 1: History and status of the field and perspectives on aging., 2015
Genetic and environmental variance in personality characteristics The claim that "all human behavioral traits are heritable" (Turkheimer, 2000, p. 160) is known as the first law of behavior genetics and means that genetic differences matter regarding individual differences in all human characteristics. In their meta-analysis of the genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in 17,804 human traits based on 50 years of twin studies, Polderman et al. (2015) reported that the average heritability across all complex traits is 49%. Consequently, about one half of individual differences across all focused traits was attributable to genetic differences (see Kandler & Papendick, Chapter 29). On average, only about 17% of variance in human traits were due to environmental influences that act to increase the similarity of same-aged siblings (i.e., monozygotic and dizygotic twins) reared together. These findings have two important implications. First, the similarity of biologically related family members in complex human behavioral traits is primarily attributable to their genetic relatedness. This has been formulated as the second law of behavior genetics: "The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes" (Turkheimer, 2000, p. 160). Second, a substantial residual portion of individual differences in complex human behavioral traits can be accounted for by factors that are not shared by family members and act to make them dissimilar. The latter has come to be known as the third law of behavior genetics: "A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families" (Turkheimer, 2000, p. 160). Despite some variation in the size of heritability estimates, the average heritability of psychological features commonly termed "personality characteristics" also amounts to 50% (Bouchard, 2004; Johnson, Vernon, & Feiler, 2008). Additionally, both little evidence for significant environmental influences shared by family members and strong influences of individual environmental factors apply to personality traits. These findings do not exclusively stem from aggregates of self-rated personality-descriptive adjectives or statements, but also from behavioral Personality Development Across the Lifespan.
This study examined the modifying role of accuracy of informant assessments for heritability estimates of personality and temperamental traits. Data from 7199 individuals including data of 1118 twin pairs were analyzed to estimate heritability on the basis of twin correlations of peer assessments for different levels of familiarity between peers and target twins treated as an index of information accuracy of peer assessments. Moreover, interactions between estimates of genetic effects and information accuracy were tested for self-report-specific variance not accounted for by peer reports. Heritability estimates on the basis of correlations between peer reports on twins increased with the degree of peer reports' accuracy, whereas it decreased for self-report residuals due to an increase of the genetic overlap between self-and peerreports with the degree of information accuracy. This indicates (1) that estimates of heritability of temperamental and personality traits are larger when modeling reports of informants who know the targets well and (2) that genetic variance in self-reports on personality traits indeed reflects accurate trait variance rather than genetic variance in self-rater biases.
Heritabilities of Common and Measure-Specific Components of the Big Five Personality Factors
Journal of Research in Personality, 1998
Three different measures of the Big Five personality dimensions were developed from the battery of questionnaires used in the National Merit Twin Study: one from trait self-rating scales, one from personality inventory items, and one from an adjective check list. Behavior-genetic models were fit to what the three measures had in common, and to the variance distinctive to each. The
European Journal of Personality
Johnson, Penke, and Spinath (2011) provide many productive insights regarding the study of gene–environment transactions and go further than most others in questioning the basic premise that specific genotype–personality linkages exist at all. The current commentary elaborates upon these issues in relation to the concept of ‘reactive heritability’, which occurs when a personality trait is facultatively calibrated over development in response to other heritable phenotypic features. Importantly, this concept may help resolve perceived conflicts between the existence of heritable personality variation and the hypothesis of a universal human nature.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2017
It has been argued that facets do not represent the bottom of the personality hierarchy-even more specific personality characteristics, nuances, could be useful for describing and understanding individuals and their differences. Combining two samples of German twins, we assessed the consensual validity (correlations across different observers), rank-order stability, and heritability of nuances. Personality nuances were operationalized as the 240 items of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Their attributes were examined by analyzing item residuals, controlling for the variance of the facet the item had been assigned to and all other facets. Most nuances demonstrated significant (p < .0002) cross-method agreement and rank-order stability. A substantial proportion of them (48% in self-reports, 20% in informant ratings, and 50% in combined ratings) demonstrated a significant (p < .0002) component of additive genetic variance, whereas evidence for environmental influences shared by twins was modest. Applying a procedure to estimate stability and heritability of true scores of item residuals yielded estimates comparable to those of higher-order personality traits, with median estimates of rank-order stability and heritability being .77 and .52, respectively. Few nuances demonstrated robust associations with age and gender, but many showed incremental, conceptually meaningful, and replicable (across methods and/or samples) predictive validity for a range of interest domains and body mass index. We argue that these narrow personality characteristics constitute a valid level of the personality hierarchy. They may be especially useful for providing a deep and contextualized description of the individual, but also for the prediction of specific outcomes.
Personality and Individual Differences
2011
The heritability and stability over a 19 year period of long (23-item) and short (12-item) versions of EysenckÕs Neuroticism scale were compared in a large Australian twin-family sample. Stability over 19 years of the 23-item Neuroticism scale was 0.62 and for the 12-item scale 0.59. Correlations between scores obtained by mailed questionnaire and telephone interview a few weeks apart were 0.87 for the long scale and 0.85 for the short scale; scores obtained by mail were slightly higher, particularly for females. The 12-item scale had slightly reduced power to discriminate both high and low scoring individuals on the full 23-item scale. Mean Neuroticism score for the 12-item scale was atypically low when compared to the distribution of the complete set of scores for all possible combinations (>1 million) of 12-items drawn from the full 23-item EPQ-R. Mean heritabilities for the lowest and highest 300,000 of these combinations were 43.2% and 42.7%, respectively, somewhat higher than the 41.0% for the actual EPQ-R-S 12-item scale. Heritability for the 23-item scale was 46.5%. We conclude that there is little loss of either stability or heritability in using the short EPQ-R scale, but the choice of which 12-items could have been better.
Personality Differences and Development: Genetic and Environmental Contributions
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2015
In 21 st century, behavioral genetic research has broadened our knowledge about the origins of personality differences and development. On average, genetic factors account for more than 50% of the variance in accurate measures of personality traits. However, heritability estimates of personality traits steadily decrease with age. Genetic factors represent the primary source of long-term continuity of individual differences in personality but also account for change -particularly in younger ages. Environmental factors represent the primary source of personality change in every period of life, but also contribute to the relatively high stability of personality differences throughout the adult life span.