"People are innately good," said J. Philippe Rushton, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario, "which is happy news for this Holiday Season. If educational systems, families, and preaching all stopped tomorrow, children would still grow up with "social glue.'"

The paper was published on-line November 30 in Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences (see DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2004.2941
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?genre=issue&issn=0962-8452&vo -- scroll down FirstCite). The paper will be in hardcopy on December 22.)

The study compared identical twins with non-identical twins to see how much they agreed on 22 questions, such as "I am a person people can count on," "It is important to finish anything you have started," and "Cheating on income tax is as bad as stealing," using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Answers are known to predict real-life behavior such as whether a person votes in elections or volunteers to help others.

The twins came from the University of London Twin Register. There were 174 pairs of monozygotic (identical twins, who share all their genes) and 148 pairs of dizygotic (non-identical twins, who share only half their genes). If monozygotic twins agree more than dizygotic twins it suggests that that morality has a biological basis and is part of our evolved psychology.

The answers of the identical twins were almost twice as alike as those of the non-identical twins. The results showed that genes account for 42% of the individual differences in attitudes, growing up in the same home for 23%, and differences within the same home for the rest.

The study also found that genes had a stronger influence on males than females (50% vs. 40%) and that home upbringing had a stronger influence on females (40% vs. 0%). This suggests parents may watch over the behavior of daughters more carefully than they do for their sons.

In previous research Rushton has shown that genes influence people's levels of altruism and aggression-including feelings of empathy like enjoying watching people open presents and acts of violence such as fighting with a weapon. Rushton has also demonstrated that the male sex hormone testosterone sets the levels of aggression and altruism.

When asked about his findings Prof. Rushton noted, "They join a host of recent research in showing that both genes and upbringing influence almost every human behavior. It is especially interesting to see that this applies to moral attitudes." He said that he agreed with George Eliot's sentiment: "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

Title of paper: Genetic and environmental contributions to pro-social attitudes: a twin study of social responsibility

Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London

Author: J. Philippe Rushton, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada

Abstract: Although 51 twin and adoption studies have been performed on the genetic architecture of antisocial behaviour, only four previous studies have examined a genetic contribution to pro-social behaviour. Earlier work by the author with the University of London Institute of Psychiatry Adult Twin Register found that genes contributed approximately half of the variance to measures of self-report altruism, empathy, nurturance and aggression, including acts of violence. The present study extends those results by using a 22-item Social Responsibility Questionnaire with 174 pairs of monozygotic twins and 148 pairs of dizygotic twins. Forty-two per cent of the reliable variance was due to the twins' genes, 23% to the twins' common environment and the remainder to the twins' non-shared environment.

Keywords: altruism, social attitudes, twins, genes, cultural transmission

- END PRESS RELEASE - 12/15/2004

/For further information: Professor J. Philippe Rushton, Ph.D., D.Sc. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5C2, Canada http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushton_bio.htm Tel: 519-661-3685 /

CO: University of Western Ontario
ST: ON
IN: EDUCATION HEALTH POLITICS SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY
PRD: 200412150006

All press releases are written by the client and have NO affiliation with the news copy written by either The Canadian Press or Broadcast News newsrooms. Any questions that arise due to the content or information provided in the press release should be directed to the company/organization issuing the release, not to CP or BN.