Age changes in the causes of individual differences in conservatism

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Genetics
• Developmental Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Understanding the etiology of social attitudes, such as conservatism, is crucial for comprehending human behavior.
• Twin studies are a powerful tool for disentangling genetic and environmental influences on complex traits.
• Previous research has explored the heritability of attitudes, but age-related changes require further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze age-related changes in the correlation between genetic and environmental factors influencing conservatism.
• To investigate how the relative importance of shared environment versus genetic effects on conservatism shifts across the lifespan.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 3416 monozygotic (MZ) and 3780 dizygotic (DZ) U.S. twin pairs.
• Assessed conservatism using a 28-item social attitude inventory.
• Analyzed twin correlations across age groups ranging from 9 to 75+ years.

Main Results:

• Shared environmental effects were found to be predominant in twins aged 20 years or younger.
• Genetic effects appeared to exert a greater influence on conservatism in older twins.
• A significant shift in the relative contribution of genes and environment to conservatism was observed with increasing age.

Conclusions:

• The development of conservatism is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, with their relative importance changing throughout life.
• A dynamic model is necessary to capture the complex gene-environment interactions underlying human individual differences in social attitudes.
• Future research should explore the specific mechanisms driving these age-related shifts in the etiology of conservatism.