Teaching motivation and altruism: A Japanse twin study

Teaching behavior is a kind of altruistic behavior to share knowledge with community members. Although genetic and environmental effects of altruism have been investigated (e.g. Rushton et al., 1986; Gregoryet al., 2009),... [ view full abstract ]

Teaching behavior is a kind of altruistic behavior to share knowledge with community members. Although genetic and environmental effects of altruism have been investigated (e.g. Rushton et al., 1986; Gregoryet al., 2009), motivation to teach and its relation to altruism are not examined from a behavioral genetic perspective. In the current study, genetic and environmental structure of altruism and teaching motivation were investigated with 623 pairs of Japanese adult twins (132 male MZ, 327 female MZ, 31 male DZ,93 female DZ, 40 opposite sex DZ), using the Self-Report Altruism Scale Distinguished by the Recipient (SRAS-DR）(Oda et al.,2013) which distinguishes three aspects of altruism according to recipients (family members, friends or acquaintances, and strangers, corresponding to kinship, indirect reciprocity, and direct reciprocity respectively). Three aspects of altruism were moderately genetic with no shared environment. Teaching motivation consisted of two factors; supportive motivation and enlightenment motivation. Although enlightenment motivation showed genetic effect, supportive motivation showed substantial shared environmental effects. The results also indicatealtruism and teaching motivation were mediated by genetic factors.