Dispositional Fear and Political Attitudes.

Previous work proposes that dispositional fear exists predominantly among political conservatives, generating the appearance that fears align strictly along party lines. This view obscures evolutionary dynamics because fear evolved to protect against myriad threats, not merely those in the political realm. We suggest prior work in this area has been biased by selection on the dependent variable, resulting from an examination of exclusively politically oriented fears that privilege conservative values. Because the adaptation regulating fear should be based upon both universal and ancestral-specific selection pressures combined with developmental and individual differences, the elicitation of it should prove variable across the ideological continuum dependent upon specific combinations of fear and value domains. In a sample of ~ 1,600 Australians assessed with a subset of the Fear Survey Schedule II, we find fears not infused with political content are differentially influential across the political spectrum. Specifically, those who are more fearful of sharp objects, graveyards, and urinating in public are more socially conservative and less supportive of gay rights. Those who are more fearful of death are more supportive of gay rights. Those who are more fearful of suffocating and swimming alone are more concerned about emissions controls and immigration, while those who are more fearful of thunderstorms are also more anti-immigration. Contrary to existing research, both liberals and conservatives are more fearful of different circumstances, and the role of dispositional fears are attitude-specific.

Are Moral Intuitions Heritable?

Two prominent theoretical frameworks in moral psychology, Moral Foundations and Dual Process Theory, share a broad foundational assumption that individual differences in human morality are dispositional and in part due to genetic variation. The only published direct test of heritability, however, found little evidence of genetic influences on moral judgments using instrumentation approaches associated with Moral Foundations Theory. This raised questions about one of the core assumptions underpinning intuitionist theories of moral psychology. Here we examine the heritability of moral psychology using the moral dilemmas approach commonly used in Dual Process Theory research. Using such measures, we find consistent and significant evidence of heritability. These findings have important implications not only for understanding which measures do, or do not, tap into the genetically influenced aspects of moral decision-making, but in better establishing the utility and validity of different intuitionist theoretical frameworks and the source of why people differ in those frameworks.

The genetic and environmental foundations of political, psychological, social, and economic behaviors: a panel study of twins and families.

Here we introduce the Genetic and Environmental Foundations of Political and Economic Behaviors: A Panel Study of Twins and Families (PIs Alford, Hatemi, Hibbing, Martin, and Smith). This study was designed to explore the genetic and environmental influences on social, economic, and political behaviors and attitudes. It involves identifying the psychological mechanisms that operate on these traits, the heritability of complex economic and political traits under varying conditions, and specific genetic correlates of attitudes and behaviors. In addition to describing the study, we conduct novel analyses on the data, estimating the heritability of two traits so far unexplored in the extant literature: Machiavellianism and Baron-Cohen's Empathizing Quotient.

The Influence of Major Life Events on Economic Attitudes in a World of Gene-Environment Interplay.

The role of "genes" on political attitudes has gained attention across disciplines. However, person-specific experiences have yet to be incorporated into models that consider genetic influences. Relying on a gene-environment interplay approach, this study explicates how life-events, such as losing one's job or suffering a financial loss, influence economic policy attitudes. The results indicate genetic and environmental variance on support for unions, immigration, capitalism, socialism and property tax is moderated by financial risks. Changes in the magnitude of genetic influences, however, are temporary. After two years, the phenotypic effects of the life events remain on most attitudes, but changes in the sources of individual differences do not. Univariate twin models that estimate the independent contributions of genes and environment on the variation of attitudes appear to provide robust baseline indicators of sources of individual differences. These estimates, however, are not event or day specific. In this way, genetic influences add stability, while environment cues change, and this process is continually updated.

Heritability in political interest and efficacy across cultures: Denmark and the United States.

Interest in politics is important for a host of political behaviors and beliefs. Yet little is known about where political interest comes from. Most studies exploring the source of political interest focus on parental influences, economic status, and opportunity. Here, we investigate an alternative source: genetic transmission. Using two twin samples, one drawn from Denmark and the other from USA, we find that there is a high degree of heritability in political interest. Furthermore, we show that interest in politics and political efficacy share the same underlying, latent genetic factor. These findings add to the growing body of literature that documents political behaviors and attitudes as not simply the result of socialization, but also as part of an individual's genetically informed disposition.

The genetics of voting: an Australian twin study.

Previously we and others have shown evidence for genetic influences on political attitudes and sociodemographic indicators (Martin 1987; Posner et al. 1996; Truett et al. 1992; Eaves et al. 1999). However, the nature of the relationship between political attitudes, social indictors and voting behavior has not been investigated. While heritability estimates for social and political attitudes have been reported in previous research, the heritability for vote choice has not. Furthermore, if vote choice is heritable, it is unclear whether the heritable component can be accounted for through the genetic influence on related social and political traits, or if there exists a unique genetic component specific to voting behavior. In mailed surveys of adult Australian twins, we asked respondents to indicate their usual voting preference as well as attitudes on contemporary individual political items. When vote choice was dichotomized as Labor versus Conservative, twin correlations were r (mz) = 0.81 (1,661 pairs), and r (dz) = 0.69 (1,727 pairs) consistent with modest genetic influence (a (2) = 0.24). However, multivariate genetic analysis showed no unique genetic contribution to voting preference; rather, the genetic influence in vote choice could be explained by shared genetic influences in perceived social class, church attendance and certain key political attitude items.