The heritability of response styles and its impact on heritability estimates of personality: A twin study

Unraveling the Relation Between Personality and Well-Being in a Genetically Informative Design

In the current study, common and unique genetic and environmental influences on personality and a broad range of well-being measures were investigated. Data on the Big Five, life satisfaction, quality of life, self-rated health, loneliness, and depression from 14,253 twins and their siblings (age M: 31.82, SD: 14.41, range 16–97) from the Netherlands Twin Register were used in multivariate extended twin models. The best-fitting theoretical model indicated that genetic variance in personality and well-being traits can be decomposed into effects due to one general, common factor ( Mdn: 60%, range 15%–89%), due to personality-specific ( Mdn: 2%, range 0%–78%) and well-being-specific ( Mdn: 12%, range 4%–35%) factors, and trait-specific effects ( Mdn: 18%, range 0%–65%). Significant amounts of non-additive genetic influences on the traits’ (co)variances were found, while no evidence was found for quantitative or qualitative sex differences. Taken together, our study paints a fine-grained, complex picture of common and unique genetic and environmental effects on personality and well-being. Implications for the interpretation of shared variance, inflated phenotypic correlations between traits and future gene finding studies are discussed.

Relations between HEXACO personality and ideology variables are mostly genetic in nature

Existing work indicates that socio-political attitudes (or: ideology) are associated with personality, with Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism relating most strongly to honesty-humility and openness to experience, the two value-related domains of the HEXACO framework. Using a sample of 7067 twins and siblings of twins (including 1376 complete twin pairs), we examined the degree to which these relations arise from common genetic and environmental sources. Heritability estimates for the HEXACO personality and ideology variables ranged from .34 to .58. Environmental factors shared by twins reared together showed negligible effects on individual differences in personality and ideology. At the phenotypic level, Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism dimensions related most strongly to honesty-humility and openness to experience. These associations were mostly explained by genetic factors (48%–93%). Genetic correlations between openness to experience and the ideology scales ranged from –.29 to –.53; those between honesty-humility and the ideology scales ranged from –.31 to –.43. None of the environmental correlations exceeded | r| = .18. These results suggest that the relations between the two value-related domains of the HEXACO personality model and ideology are mostly genetic in nature, and that there is substantial overlap in the heritable components of personality and ideology.

A comprehensive review of studies using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales in the psychological and psychiatric sciences

Jaak Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience Theory (ANT) belongs to the most prominent emotion theories in the psychological and psychiatric sciences. ANT proposes the existence of seven primary emotional systems deeply anchored in the mammalian brain. These emotional/motivational systems have been shaped by evolutionary processes and function as tools for survival in mammalian species. The systems are called SEEKING, LUST, CARE, and PLAY, as well as ANGER, FEAR, and SADNESS. Panksepp carved out these emotional systems via means of deep brain stimulation, brain lesion and pharmacological manipulation studies. Davis et al. (2003) designed the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) against the background of findings from ANT. This self-report inventory is meant to enable researchers to assess individual differences in primary emotional systems. Seventeen years have passed since the first version of the ANPS has been published. Therefore, we now provide a comprehensive overview on studies using the ANPS including work from personality science, psychiatry and the neurosciences.

Influence of Two Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene (OXTR) on Empathy: the Mediation Role of a Primary Emotion, CARE

To feel other's pain would elicit empathy. Some theorists hypothesized that observing other's pain may activate the primary emotion of maternal care instinct, which may function as a precursor of empathy. The maternal care instinct and empathy share the same genetic background and neuroendocrine underpinnings. An extensive body of research has shown that maternal behaviors relate to the oxytocinergic system, which has a strong influence on empathy. These studies suggest that the maternal care instinct may mediate the effect of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) on empathy. To provide evidence for this mediation, we used the subscale of CARE in Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) to measure the maternal care instinct and tested two OXTR single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs53576 and rs13316193, in 880 high school participants (588 females, 292 males; M_age = 16.51 years old, SD = 0.65). Results showed that the genotype of rs13316193 was indirectly associated with empathy via CARE, suggesting a mediating role of CARE in the pathway from OXTR to empathy. These findings may contribute to an understanding of how empathy emerges when one witnesses another person in pain.

On the Etiology of Self-Enhancement and Its Association With Psychological Well-Being

Self-enhancement, the motive to view oneself in positive light, and its manifestations have received wide attention in behavioral sciences. The self-enhancement manifestations vary on a continuum from a subjective level (agentic narcissism, communal narcissism, narcissistic grandiosity) through an intermediate level (better-than-average judgments) to an objective level (overclaiming one’s knowledge). Prior research has established the heritability of self-enhancement manifestations at the subjective and intermediate levels. The present twin study demonstrated that (1) the objective level of self-enhancement manifestation is also heritable; (2) a common core, which is moderately heritable, underlies the three levels of self-enhancement manifestations; (3) the relation between self-enhancement (manifested at all three levels) and psychological well-being is partly heritable; and (4) environmental influences, either shared by or unique to family members, are evident through (1), (2), and (3). The findings deepen understanding of the etiology of individual differences in self-enhancement and their links to psychological well-being.

The Influence of Attachment Styles and Personality Organization on Emotional Functioning After Childhood Trauma

Background: Current literature suggests a tenuous link among childhood trauma, personality organization, adult attachment, and emotional functioning in various psychiatric disorders. However, empirical research focusing on the interaction of these concepts is sparse. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the influence of personality organization and attachment dimensions on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotional functioning in adult life. To assess emotional functioning, we adopted the Affective Neuroscience model of primary emotions, comprising SEEKING, FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS, CARE, and PLAY. Methods: The total sample consisted of 616 nonclinical adults (Age: M = 30; SD = 9.53; 61.9% female). Path analysis was applied to investigate interactions among childhood trauma, personality organization, adult attachment, and primary emotion dispositions. Results: The findings suggest that childhood trauma significantly predicted deficits in personality organization and insecure attachment (all p < 0.001). Furthermore, a reduced level of personality organization was significantly associated with increased ANGER (p < 0.001), whereas adult attachment substantially predicted primary emotion dispositions in general. Moreover, the results indicate significant mediational effects of personality organization and attachment dimensions on the relationship between childhood trauma and primary emotions (p < 0.01). The final model was able to explain 48% of the variance in SADNESS, 38% in PLAY, 35% in FEAR, 28% in CARE, 14% in ANGER, and 13% in SEEKING. Discussion: The findings contribute to the understanding of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and impaired emotional functioning in adult life. Furthermore, the importance of personality organization and attachment dimensions for emotion regulation is underlined. Consequently, the treatment of patients with childhood trauma should focus on facilitating the development of more secure attachment patterns and increased personality functioning to improve overall emotional functioning.