Collaborative Research: DHB: Identifying the Biological Influences on Political Temperaments

人类生活在大的社会单位中，往往非常关心管理这些单位(政治)生活的规则，即使这些规则不太可能影响他们个人。事实上，他们有时非常在意，以至于在政治上的意见分歧可能会导致小范围的争论和大规模的暴力事件。这个项目使用了不同样本的广泛技术，考察了对人们政治偏好的多重影响。传统上，人们一直认为，环境因素，如父母的社会化，导致一些人采取与左翼有关的立场，另一些人则采取与右翼有关的立场(还有一些人根本不采取任何政治立场)。然而，行为遗传学领域以一种重要的方式修正了这一假设，提供了主要来自双胞胎研究的经验证据，表明遗传学在塑造政治取向方面也发挥了作用。这项研究通过使用多层次的分析来扩展这项工作，包括基因分型、脑成像、生理测试、调查和荷尔蒙分析，适用于美国和澳大利亚的大样本人群。识别与不同政治气质相关的特定基因、生物系统和认知加工偏差不仅使基因与政治气质之间的联系更具说服力，而且还阐明了政治倾向的性质和来源。该项目还将为本科生和研究生提供跨学科培训机会。

Humans live in large social units and often care deeply about the rules governing life in those units (politics) even if those rules are unlikely to affect them personally. In fact, they sometimes care so deeply that differences of opinion over politics can be the cause of small-scale arguments and large-scale violence. This project examines the multiple influences on people's political preferences, using a wide range of techniques across different samples. Traditionally, it has been assumed that environmental factors, like parental socialization, lead some people to adopt positions associated with the left and others to adopt positions associated with the right (while still others refrain from adopting any political positions at all). The field of behavioral genetics, however, modifies this assumption in an important way by providing empirical evidence, mostly from twin studies, showing that genetics also plays a role in shaping political orientations. This research extends this work by using multiple levels of analyses including genotyping, brain imaging, physiological tests, surveys, and hormonal assays, applied to large samples of people in the United States and in Australia. Not only does identifying the specific genes, biological systems, and cognitive processing biases relevant to various political temperaments make the gene-political temperament link more convincing, it elucidates the nature and sources of political orientations. This project will also provide interdisciplinary training opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students.