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    Genes, Environment, and Personality Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. Science, New Series, Volume 264, Issue 5166 (Jun. 17, 1994), 1700-1701. Stable URL: bttp//links jstor.org/sici?sic!=0036-8075% 28 19940617%293%3A264%3A5166%3C1700%3AGEAP%3E2.0,.CO%3B2-C ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstor org/about/terms.html. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission. Science is published by American Association for the Advancement of Science, Please contact the publisher for further permissions regarding the use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/www.jstor.org/journals/aaas.html, Science (©1994 American Association for the Advancement of Science ISTOR and the ISTOR logo are trademarks of ISTOR, and are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office For more information on ISTOR contact jstor-info@umich.edv, (©2003 JSTOR upslwww jstor.org/ ei Ape 11 06:15:29 2003 Genes, Environment, and Personality Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. ‘The idea that genetic factors influence be- havior, including personality, is very old. ‘The most compelling evidence has always been, as Darwin (I) noted, the successful domestication of animals. So in regard to mental qualities, thie trans mission is manifest in our dogs, homes and other dlomestc animals. Besides special estes and hab ‘ts general intelligence, courage, bad and good empers, etc, ae certainly transmitted, Unlike genetic influences on the intel- ligence quotient, which have been studied continuously since the time of Galton a century ago, the study of genetic influences ‘on personality has had a much briefer his- tory. Although Galton discussed genetic influence on personality, the lack of reli- able and valid measures of personality qual: ities hampered progress. In addition, until recently, psychologists could not agree on which were the important traits of person: ality. Currently there is a modest consensus that five broad traits or “super factors” are necessary to describe personality —extraver sion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agree ableness, and openness (2) (see table) Until the early 1980s, the evidence for genetic influence on personality derived al- most exclusively from twin studies that uti- lized very modest sample sizes and mea sured different variables. Heritability was estimated as twice the difference between the correlation for identical or monozygotic (MZ) twins and that for fraternal or dizy sotic (DZ) twins. The typical conclusion was that about 50% of the observed vari- ance in personality is due to genetic factors (3). The influence on personality of the shared home environment (estimated as twice the DZ correlation minus the MZ value) was concluded to be small or even negligible. These simple equations make a number of assumptions, including (i) on average DZ twins share half as many genes in common by descent as MZ twins, (i) the genes act additively, and (jit) MZ and [DZ ewins experience the same shared envi ronmental influences. If the assumptions are correct, the difference between the two types of twins reflects one-half the genetic influence on the trait being studied. ‘The conclusion that 50% of the varia- {he autor isn the Department of Paychotogy, Univer Styl Mnnecta, Mneapote, WI 5-044, USA 1700 tion in personality is genetic was not uni versally embraced. Many psychologists ‘questioned that MZ and DZ twins experi tence the same home environment and at- cribed much of the greater similarity of MZ twins over DZ twins to more similar envi ronmental treatment of the MZ than the DZ twins. Iealso seemed implausible to psy- chologists that being reared in the same hhome would have so litle influence on sib ling similarity. Consequently these findings were not generally accepted outside of be hhavioral genetics, In recent years, three trends have con- verged to transform our understanding of genetic and environmental influences on personality raits. Firs, studies of twins reared together with very lange sample sizes, in some instances over 2000 pairs of each, sex and zygosity, have been carried out. Sec ond, data have’ been gathered from mono. zygotic and dizygotic wins reared apart (MZA and DZA), as well as from both bio- logical and adoptive families. Third, pow- erful methods of model fitting have been introduced that allow full utilization of the available information and statistical testing cof competing hypotheses (4, 5). op inn i soon, tiiee aka sonaaeoroop ‘Agreeableness: Lkabilly, Friendliness, Pleasant, Aggression (-) ‘watts indeate the Muticemensional Personaly Quostonnaire factors orscalesuseato measure ‘hase fo charactrsts inthe Minnosota sty a wins reared apart. ‘The figure compares the results of the carly twin studies, an analysis of an. ex twomely large daa Set assembled by Lochlin (6), and our own analysis of MZA (n = 59) and DZA (n= 47) data from the Minne sota study of twins reared apart (MISTRA) and MZT (n = 522) and DZT (n = 408) tvns from the Minnesota Twin Registry (7). The Lochlin analysis yields an est mated genetic influence of 42% (with a si able contribution fom nonadditive genetic factors—influences that are configura and not inherited in a simple additive manner) and a very modest contribution of the shared environment. The most parsimoni- cus fit to the Minnesota data isa simple a= ditive genetic model for all five traits with an estimate of genetic influence of 46%. ‘Addition of nonadditive genetic and shared environmental parameters do not, however, significantly change the fit ofthe ‘model, and those data are shown i the fg- ture for comparison with the Lochlia analy- sis, Both approaches yield estimates of ge- netic influence of just over 40% and mod- ct estimates of shared environmental nfl fence (7%). OF the remaining variance, about half is due to nonshared environ” mental influences and half to error of mea surement. Thus, about two-thirds ofthe re liable variance in measured personality traits is due to genetic influence. ‘The carly studies of twins appear to have only slightly overestimated the degree of genetic influence on personality varia- tion, and the main contribution of the more sophisticated recent analyses is that some of the genetic influence seems to be dic la.querrelgore, aggressive, unitendy, ‘cold, and vindictive SCIENCE # VOL. 264 + 17 JUNE 1994 oo on 02 oa BB Aditive genetic ‘Sources of variation in personaltyinthroe sets of data. ‘of valanee accounted for by vatious genetic and envitormental if Nonaadtive genetic] Shared environment 04 0808 Percentages fences in personality traits. The sold ines indicate the maan Falconer nonadditive genetic variance for all five traits. All three analyses yield quite small estimates of shared environmental_inglu cence. This is now a well-teplicated finding in behavior geneties, and its implications are straightforward, The similarity we seein personality between biological relatives is almost entirely genetic in origin. If we wish to study envionmental influences on per sonality development in families, we must look for influences that operate differential: Iyamong children in the same family (8) However, simply demonstrating that systematic differences in treatment within the family exist does not suflice to prove that such treatments explain personality differences. First, the treatment may have no effect. For example, differences in so.

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