Life Satisphaction and Personality Share Strong Genetic Roots, New Findings Reveal – ryan
New Research published in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology Shows that bot Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction are Significantly More Heritable than Previously Thought.
How Much of Who We Are is inherited from Our Family? For decades, psychologists have tried to provides a quantitative Answer through estimates of heritability. Traditional Studies, offen based on self-reforts from twins, have placed the heritability of the Big Five Personal Traits ARUND 40-50%. Howver, these studies May Provide Only an Upper Limit, reflecting Both genetic and shared environmental influences; they Also ti to rele on a single Method of Measurement.
More recent evidence from studies of Ordinary relatives, Such as siblings or parents and children, suggests that personality traits are much lower, typically ARUND 15%. This has haissed the quests about whether twin studies overstimate heritability or whether single-method appraaches fail to capure the full picture.
In this study, rené mõttus and colleagues grinded their research in the idea that self-reports offten include biases that obscure the “true” family resemblancing. By Integrating Informant Reports (evaluations from People who know the participant well), the researchers aimed to separate genuine traits from Methodological noise.
The Study Used Data from the Estonian Boobank, A Large-Scale, Population-Based Genetic and Psychological Research Project. Participants Included 32,004 Estonian-Speaking Adults (AGE 17-102, 71% Female) Who Had Completed a Compreens Self-Report Survey on Personal and Life Satisfaction. Importantly, Generic Data Allowed the Researchers to Identify Relationships Among Participants, Including Parent-Child, Siblings, and Second-Degree Relatives, Resulting in 24,118 Relatives for the Main Self-Report Analysis.
A Smaller Subset of 2,258 Participants (1,386 Relative Pairs) ALSO HAD INFORTS AVAILABLE REPORTS, WHERE EACH WAS RATED BY SOMEON CLOSE TO THEM (Mostly Spouses or Long-Term Partners). This Dual-Source Design Allowed the Researchers to Estimate Similary Based on Information SHARED ACROSS RATERS, WHAT THEY CALLED “TRUE CORRELATIONS. All Participants Completed A 198-Item Measure Called The 100-NP, which Includes Big Five Traits and Additional Dimensions. LIFE SATISFATION WAS MASUured with Three Targetted Items and Validated Against Estabished Well-Being Measures.
Advanced Statistical Models, Including Multigroup Structural Equation Modeling, Were use to estimate Additive genetic influenza (heritability) while controlling for biases in single-rater data.
Self-Report Data Alone Replicated Previous Findings. Correlations in Big Five Traits Between Parents and Children or Siblings Hovered Around 0.13 to 0.15. For Second-Degree Relatives, Correlations Were Even Smaller, AROUND 0.07. This suggests that family resemblancing in personality is modest when relaying solely on self-assessments.
Howver, use using the multimethod design, “TRUE CORRELATIONS” Parent-offspring correlations Avreaged Around 0.25, and Sibling Correlations About 0.20-Roughly 35-50% Higher than Single-Method Estimates. These true correlations translated into narrow -sense heritability estimates of around 42% for Personality Traits and 47% for Life Satisfaction-Substantily than the 26% Estimated from Self-Reports Alone.
Furthermore, Life Satisfaction was just as heritable as Personality Traits and Shared About 80% of Its Genetic Variance with Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness. Nearly Half of Life Satisfacy’s Correlation with these traits was genetically Drivë.
Notably, there was was little evidens that shared family Environments influenza these traits. Second-Degree relatives Who Did Not Grow Up Together were just as simillar as those who did, reinforcing the view that family reemployment primarily from genetics, not upbinging.
The authors acknowledge that Despite EFFORTS to isolate TRUE SIMILARY, The Generalizability of the Findings May Be Constrained by Sample Composition (Primarily Estonian Participants) and Reliance on Informants Who Were Not Randomly ASSIGENED, WHIC MAY MAY MAY MAY MAY IT biases.
Overall, This Study Underscores That Life Satisphaction and Personality Are More Strongly Shaped by Genetics than Commonly Reported, and Highlights the Value of Multimethod Designs for Accurately Estimating Psychological Heritability.
The Study, “Familial Similary and Heritability of Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction Are Higher than Shown in Typical Single-Method Studies”Was authored by rené mõttus, Christian Kedler, Michelle Luciano, Tõnu Esko, Uku Vainik, and The Estonian Boobank Research Team.