The fact that genes and environment contribute differentially to variation in human behaviors, traits and attitudes is central to the field of behavior genetics. To the public, perceptions about these differential... [ view full abstract ]
The fact that genes and environment contribute differentially to variation in human behaviors, traits and attitudes is central to the field of behavior genetics. To the public, perceptions about these differential contributions may affect ideas about human agency. Intriguingly, the relationship between our intuitions about free will and knowledge about the heritability of human traits has remained largely unstudied. For example, a deterministic universe would have the same logical implications for free will regardless of whether genes or environment are more responsible for determining our behavior. And yet it seems plausible that people might have different intuitions about how these types of causal factors are related to the concept of free will. This suggests that a behavioral genetic approach is uniquely equipped to answer an important question in this vein: How do attitudes about free will and determinism relate to what people believe about the genetic and environmental contributions to behavior?
We surveyed two independent samples (N = 301 and N = 740) to assess beliefs about free will and determinism (Paulhus and Carey, 2011; Nadelhoffer, 2014), as well as political orientation, religiosity, and the relative contribution of genes and environment to 21 human traits (Carver et al., 2017). We find that beliefs about the heritability of these traits cluster into four distinct groups, loosely defined as physical, psychiatric, psychological and lifestyle traits, which differentially predict both beliefs about human agency and political orientation. Despite apparent ideological influences on these beliefs, the correspondence between lay judgments of heritabilities and published estimates is large (r = .77). Belief in genetic determinism emerges as a modest significant predictor of accuracy in these judgments. Additionally, level of education, gender, and number of children all positively predict accuracy, with educated mothers of multiple children emerging as particularly accurate in their judgments of the heritabilities of these traits.
References
Carver RB, et al. (2017) Young adults’ belief in genetic determinism, and knowledge and attitudes towards modern genetics and genomics: The PUGGS questionnaire. PLOS One 12(1):e0169808
Nadelhoffer T, et al. (2014) The free will inventory: Measuring beliefs about agency and responsibility. Consciousness and Cognition 25:27–41
Paulhus DL, Carey JM (2011) The FAD-plus: Measuring lay beliefs regarding free will and related constructs. Journal of Personality Assessment 93(1):96–104
Personality, Temperament, Attitudes, Politics and Religion , other
