ArticleAmerican journal of public health2013
Why it is hard to find genes associated with social science traits: theoretical and empirical considerations.
Article in American journal of public health, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 26 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- GWAS meta-analysis reveals novel loci and genetic correlates for general cognitive function: a report from the COGENT consortium.Molecular psychiatry · 2017Pooled it
- Underlying Mechanisms of Gene-Environment Interactions in Externalizing Behavior: A Systematic Review and Search for Theoretical Mechanisms.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2015Pooled it
- Genome-wide analysis of social behaviour across social domains, reporters and developmental stages: a meta-regression approach.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Multivariate prediction of cognitive performance from the sleep electroencephalogram.NeuroImage · 2023Article
- Health of Convicted Persons in the Third Generation of the Longitudinal Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development.International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology · 2023Article
- TOMM40 '523 Genotype Distinguishes Patterns of Cognitive Improvement for Executive Function in APOEɛ3 Homozygotes.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2023Article
- The evolution of marsupial social organization.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- Two genetic analyses to elucidate causality between body mass index and personality.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2021Article
- Cognitive ability and education: How behavioural genetic research has advanced our knowledge and understanding of their association.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Review
- No association between genetic variants in MAOA, OXTR, and AVPR1a and cooperative strategies.PloS one · 2020Article
- TOMM40 '523 Associations with Baseline and Longitudinal Cognition in APOE ɛ3 Homozygotes.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2019Article
- Weak effects of common genetic variation in oxytocin and vasopressin receptor genes on rhesus macaque social behavior.American journal of primatology · 2018Article
- The genetics of human personality.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2018Review
- A Genomically Informed Education System? Challenges for Behavioral Genetics.The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2018Article
- Sensorimotor Learning: Neurocognitive Mechanisms and Individual Differences.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2017Review
- How neuroscience can inform the study of individual differences in cognitive abilities.Reviews in the neurosciences · 2017Review
- Biometric Modeling of Gene-Environment Interplay: The Intersection of Theory and Method and Applications for Social Inequality.Journal of personality · 2017Review
- Alcohol-related genes show an enrichment of associations with a persistent externalizing factor.Journal of abnormal psychology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesWe explain why traits of interest to behavioral scientists may have a genetic architecture featuring hundreds or thousands of loci with tiny individual effects rather than a few with large effects and why such an architecture makes it difficult to find robust associations between traits and genes.
methodsWe conducted a genome-wide association study at 2 sites, Harvard University and Union College, measuring more than 100 physical and behavioral traits with a sample size typical of candidate gene studies. We evaluated predictions that alleles with large effect sizes would be rare and most traits of interest to social science are likely characterized by a lack of strong directional selection. We also carried out a theoretical analysis of the genetic architecture of traits based on R.A. Fisher's geometric model of natural selection and empirical analyses of the effects of selection bias and phenotype measurement stability on the results of genetic association studies.
resultsAlthough we replicated several known genetic associations with physical traits, we found only 2 associations with behavioral traits that met the nominal genome-wide significance threshold, indicating that physical and behavioral traits are mainly affected by numerous genes with small effects.
conclusionsThe challenge for social science genomics is the likelihood that genes are connected to behavioral variation by lengthy, nonlinear, interactive causal chains, and unraveling these chains requires allying with personal genomics to take advantage of the potential for large sample sizes as well as continuing with traditional epidemiological studies.
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