Conservatism is in the genes (?)
Alford et al and New Scientist
It could well be that one’s political leanings are not determined by one’s life experience, but rather by one’s genes. I should clarify that no one suggests that the genes directly influence ones politics, but that they influence personality traits which in turn influence political views.
Research from John Alford, a political scientist from Rice University, Houston, TX, suggests that genetics has a formative role in determining political ideologies, but a lesser role in identifying with a political party.
According to an emerging idea, political positions are substantially determined by biology and can be stubbornly resistant to reason. “These views are deep-seated and built into our brains. Trying to persuade someone not to be liberal is like trying to persuade someone not to have brown eyes. We have to rethink persuasion,” says John Alford.
Alford’s study made comparisons of the differential correlations of the attitudes of monozygotic (identical) twins and dizygotic (non-identical) twins. He and his team analysed data drawn from a large sample of twins in the United States, supplemented with findings from twins in Australia.
The study found that identical twins were more likely than non-identical twins to give the same answers to political questions.
In 2003, John Jost a psychologist at NYU conducted a study of 88 papers involving over 20 thousand people in 12 countries, looking for correlations between personality traits and political ideologies. He found that
people who scored highly on a scale measuring fear of death were four times more likely to hold conservative views. Dogmatic types were more conservative, whilst those who expressed interest in new experiences tended to be more liberal.
The big five personality traits (conscientiousness, openness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) are all highly heritable and while the last two are unlikely to influence political ideology, the first three are.
Conscientiousness
Organised, self-disciplined, responsible and likely to follow rules.Openness
Open to experiences, focusing on change as an opportunity rather than a problem and thinking about the world as it might be.Extroversion
Being quick to self-disclose, tending to process information out loud and being fond of being seen to be busy.
Democrats have a preponderance of genes which influence extroversion and openness positively and conscientiousness negatively, whilst Republicans have genes which influence conscientiousness positively and extroversion and openness negatively.
So while there isn’t a gene for liking hippies, there is probably a set of genes that influences openness, which in turn may influence political orientation.
