Collaborative Research: Genes and Politics: Providing the Necessary Data

人们普遍认为，一生中发生的各种事件和经历是他们政治信仰和行为的来源，然而，使用经典双胞胎设计的行为遗传学研究一致发现，另一个重要来源是生物学；具体来说，它发现人们会遗传政治倾向。这些倾向并不等同于基因决定论，但事实上，即使是政治倾向的一部分差异也源于基因，这一事实令人惊讶。迄今为止，用来得出关于政治倾向的遗传性的结论的数据是有限的。主要关注身体状况和精神健康的学者偶尔会问一些关于政治信仰的简短问题，但这些信仰的细节和强度从未被遗传学家评估过。此外，政治行为的遗传性（人们是否投票、参与竞选、捐款、加入利益集团、接触官员、追随政治或试图说服他人？）尚未得到确定。这个项目编制了第一个完整的数据集，关于美国双胞胎的政治倾向和行为。因此，它使得对政治信仰的可遗传性以及这些信仰的强度以及由这些信仰产生的政治行为的首次估计成为可能。这个项目一个值得注意的更广泛的影响是，在传播后，这个全面的数据集将是第一个允许主流政治科学家进行他们自己的分析环境和遗传对政治的贡献的数据集。行为遗传学家收集的现有数据集都是专有的，并且包含有限的政治内容。与该项目一起收集的数据使社会科学家能够将他们的经验工作与生命科学的工作结合起来，从而有助于鼓励早就应该进行的社会科学和生物科学的融合，并更全面地说明人类状况的本质，更具体地说明大规模政治的来源。

The various events and experiences that occur during the course of people's lifetimes are widely assumed to be the source of their political beliefs and behaviors, yet research from behavioral genetics, using the classic twin design, consistently finds that another important source is biology; specifically, it finds that people inherit political predispositions. These predispositions do not equate to genetic determinism, but the fact that even a portion of the variation in political orientations springs from genetics is surprising.To date, the data employed to draw conclusions regarding the heritability of political orientations have been limited. Scholars whose primary concerns are physical conditions and mental health occasionally ask brief batteries of questions about political beliefs, but the details and intensities of these beliefs have never been assessed by geneticists. Moreover, the heritability of political behaviors (do people vote, work in campaigns, contribute money, join interest groups, contact officials, follow politics, or try to persuade others?) has not been ascertained. This project compiles the first complete data set on the political orientations and behaviors of twins in the United States. As such, it makes possible the first estimates of the heritability of not just political beliefs but also the intensity of those beliefs and the political behaviors generated by those beliefs.One notable broader impact of this project is that, upon dissemination, this comprehensive data set will be the first to allow mainstream political scientists to conduct their own analyses of the environmental and genetic contributions to politics. Existing data sets collected by behavioral geneticists are both proprietary and contain limited political content. The data collected in conjunction with this project allow social scientists to integrate their empirical work with that in the life sciences, thus helping to encourage a long-overdue melding of the social and biological sciences and a more complete accounting of the nature of the human condition and more specifically of the sources of mass-scale politics.