Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T06:02:19.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Genetic Contributions to Political Phenomena

from Part I - Foundations of Political Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

By
Rose McDermott
Edited by
Danny Osborne  and
Chris G. Sibley
Danny Osborne
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Chris G. Sibley
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses some of the relevant findings in the study of genetics and politics, with an examination of how these forces interact and intersect. Particular attention is given to the importance of assortative mating in determining political ideology, a topic that has been typically neglected by political science. Full incorporation of evolutionary, biological, and genetic contributions to political attitudes, preferences, and behaviour should start to change the way we think about both politics and science. Environments are not infinitely malleable and susceptible to easy intervention, any more than biology or genetics are immutable, fixed, or unchanging.  Our genes operate in a social context and constantly interact with that environment in a recursive and iterative manner.  These mechanisms also influence how we get our genes through processes like mate selection, and affect how those genes operate in a complex social and political world.  This interaction has real-world political and social consequences, producing significant outcomes, including in-group protection, out-group discrimination, allocation of resources, and the regulation of human sexuality in all forms.

Keywords

GeneticsPoliticsAssortative matingAttitudesEnvironments
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology , pp. 37 - 49
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alford, J. R., Funk, C. L., & Hibbing, J. R. (2005). Are political orientations genetically transmitted? American Political Science Review, 99(2), 153–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alford, J. R., Hatemi, P. K., Hibbing, J. R., Martin, N. G., & Eaves, L. J. (2011). The politics of mate choice. The Journal of Politics, 73(2), 362–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alford, J. R., & Hibbing, J. R. (2004). The origin of politics: An evolutionary theory of political behavior. Perspectives on Politics, 2(4), 707–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alink, L. R., Mesman, J., Van Zeijl, J., et al. (2006). The early childhood aggression curve: Development of physical aggression in 10‐to 50‐month‐old children. Child Development, 77(4), 954–966.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . (2006). Politics. ReadHowYouWant.com.Google Scholar
Barrett, H. C. (2012). A hierarchical model of the evolution of human brain specializations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(Suppl. 1), 10733–10740.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. (1992). The aggression questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 452–459.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buss, D. M. (1985). Human mate selection: Opposites are sometimes said to attract, but in fact we are likely to marry someone who is similar to us in almost every variable. American Scientist, 73(1), 47–51.Google Scholar
Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., Miller, W. E., & Stokes, D. E. (1960). The American voter. Wiley.Google Scholar
Cyranoski, D. (2020, 3 January). What CRISPR-baby prison sentences mean for research. Nature.Google Scholar
Devkota, S., & Chang, E. B. (2015). Interactions between diet, bile acid metabolism, gut microbiota, and inflammatory bowel diseases. Digestive Diseases, 33(3), 351–356.Google Scholar
Dodd, M. D., Balzer, A., Jacobs, C. M., Gruszczynski, M. W., Smith, K. B., & Hibbing, J. R. (2012). The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: Connecting physiology and cognition to preferences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1589), 640–649.Google Scholar
Eaves, L., D’Onofrio, B., & Russell, R. (1999). Transmission of religion and attitudes. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 2(2), 59–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eaves, L. J., & Hatemi, P. K. (2008). Transmission of attitudes toward abortion and gay rights: Effects of genes, social learning and mate selection. Behavior Genetics, 38(3), 247–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eaves, L. J., & Hatemi, P. K. (2011). Do we choose our spouse based on our in‐laws? Resolving the effects of family background and spousal choice for educational attainment, religious practice, and political preference. Social Science Quarterly, 92(5), 1253–1278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elia, A., Wilson, O. J., Lees, M., et al. (2019). Skeletal muscle, haematological and splenic volume characteristics of elite breath-hold divers. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 119(11–12), 2499–2511.Google Scholar
Fowler, J. H., & Dawes, C. T. (2013). In defense of genopolitics. American Political Science Review, 107(2), 362–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J. H., & Schreiber, D. (2008). Biology, politics, and the emerging science of human nature. Science, 322(5903), 912–914.Google Scholar
Funk, C. (2020, 12 February). Key findings about Americans’ confidence in science and their views on scientists’ role in society. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/12/key-findings-about-americans-confidence-in-science-and-their-views-on-scientists-role-in-society/Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Crabtree, C., & McDermott, R. (2017). The relationship between sexual preferences and political orientations: Do positions in the bedroom affect positions in the ballot box? Personality and Individual Differences, 105(15), 318–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Funk, C. L., Medland, S. E., et al. (2009). Genetic and environmental transmission of political attitudes over a life time. The Journal of Politics 71(3), 1141–1156.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Gillespie, N. A., Eaves, L. J., et al. (2011). A genome-wide analysis of liberal and conservative political attitudes. The Journal of Politics, 73(1), 271–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Hibbing, J. R., Medland, S. E., et al. (2010). Not by twins alone: Using the extended family design to investigate genetic influence on political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science, 54(3), 798–814.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., & McDermott, R. (Eds.). (2011a). Man is by nature a political animal: Evolution, biology, and politics. The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., & McDermott, R. (2011b). The normative implications of biological research. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(2), 325–329.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., & McDermott, R. (2012a). The genetics of politics: Discovery, challenges, and progress. Trends in Genetics, 28(10), 525–533.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P., & McDermott, R. (2012b). Policing the perimeter: Disgust and purity in democratic debate. PS: Political Science & Politics, 45(4), 675–687.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., & McDermott, R. (2016). Give me attitudes. Annual Review of Political Science, 19, 331–350.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., McDermott, R., Bailey, J. M., & Martin, N. G. (2012). The different effects of gender and sex on vote choice. Political Research Quarterly, 65(1), 76–92.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., McDermott, R., Eaves, L. J., Kendler, K. S., & Neale, M. C. (2013). Fear as a disposition and an emotional state: A genetic and environmental approach to out‐group political preferences. American Journal of Political Science, 57(2), 279–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Medland, S. E., Klemmensen, R., et al. (2014). Genetic influences on political ideologies: Twin analyses of 19 measures of political ideologies from five democracies and genome-wide findings from three populations. Behavior Genetics, 44(3), 282–294.Google Scholar
Hibbing, J. R., Smith, K. B., & Alford, J. R. (2014). Negativity bias and political preferences: A response to commentators. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(3), 333–350.Google Scholar
Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2009). Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals. Cognition and Emotion, 23(4), 714–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klofstad, C. A., McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2012). Do bedroom eyes wear political glasses? The role of politics in human mate attraction. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33(2), 100–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klofstad, C. A., McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2013). The dating preferences of liberals and conservatives. Political Behavior, 35(3), 519–538.Google Scholar
Martin, N. G., Eaves, L. J., Heath, A. C., Jardine, R., Feingold, L. M., & Eysenck, H. J. (1986). Transmission of social attitudes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 83(12), 4364–4368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2011). Distinguishing sex and gender. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(1), 89–92.Google Scholar
McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2014a). The study of international politics in the neurobiological revolution: A review of leadership and political violence. Millennium, 43(1), 92–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2014b). Political ecology: On the mutual formation of biology and culture. Political Psychology, 35(3), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00901.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2017). The relationship between physical aggression, foreign policy and moral choices: Phenotypic and genetic findings. Aggressive Behavior, 43(1), 37–46.Google Scholar
McDermott, R., & Hatemi, P. K. (2018). DNA is not destiny. In Hopcroft, R. L. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of evolution, biology, and society (pp. 241–263). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McDermott, R., Lopez, A. C., & Hatemi, P. K. (2016). An evolutionary approach to political leadership. Security Studies, 25(4), 677–698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, R., Tingley, D., & Hatemi, P. K. (2014). Assortative mating on ideology could operate through olfactory cues. American Journal of Political Science, 58(4), 997–1005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, X. C., Segata, N., & Huttenhower, C. (2013). Biodiversity and functional genomics in the human microbiome. Trends in Genetics, 29(1), 51–58.Google Scholar
Oosterhoff, B., Shook, N. J., & Ford, C. (2018). Is that disgust I see? Political ideology and biased visual attention. Behavioural Brain Research, 336, 227–235.Google Scholar
Penn, D., & Potts, W. (1998). How do major histocompatibility complex genes influence odor and mating preferences? Advances in Immunology, 69(41), 411–436.Google Scholar
Petersen, M. B. (2012). Social welfare as small‐scale help: Evolutionary psychology and the deservingness heuristic. American Journal of Political Science, 56(1), 1–16.Google Scholar
Schreiber, D., Fonzo, G., Simmons, A. N., et al. (2013). Red brain, blue brain: Evaluative processes differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS ONE, 8(2), Article e52970.Google Scholar
Sutton, S. K., & Davidson, R. J. (1997). Prefrontal brain asymmetry: A biological substrate of the behavioral approach and inhibition systems. Psychological Science, 8(3), 204–210.Google Scholar
Wilson, G. D., & Patterson, J. R. (1968). A new measure of conservatism. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 7(4), 264–269.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×