Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35510303›Full record

ArticleThe Behavioral and brain sciences2022

Building causal knowledge in behavior genetics.

James W Madole, K Paige Harden

Abstract read
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In one paragraph

Article in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
15citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

15 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Personality Genomics.Annual review of psychology · 2026
    Review
  4. Article
  5. The genetic lottery goes to school: Better schools compensate for the effects of students' genetic differences.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. The Geneticization of Education and Its Bioethical Implications.Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees · 2024
    Article
  10. Causal interpretations of family GWAS in the presence of heterogeneous effects.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Reply to Qiu et al.: Hunting for leadership "causal" genes: Mission possible?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

James W MadoleDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA jmadole@utexas.edu harden@utexas.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-2301-0004
K Paige HardenDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA jmadole@utexas.edu harden@utexas.edu.

Funding

John Templeton FoundationNational Institute of Child Health and Human Development P2CHD042849
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Behavior genetics is a controversial science. For decades, scholars have sought to understand the role of heredity in human behavior and life-course outcomes. Recently, technological advances and the rapid expansion of genomic databases have facilitated the discovery of genes associated with human phenotypes such as educational attainment and substance use disorders. To maximize the potential of this flourishing science, and to minimize potential harms, careful analysis of what it would mean for genes to be causes of human behavior is needed. In this paper, we advance a framework for identifying instances of genetic causes, interpreting those causal relationships, and applying them to advance causal knowledge more generally in the social sciences. Central to thinking about genes as causes is counterfactual reasoning, the cornerstone of causal thinking in statistics, medicine, and philosophy. We argue that within-family genetic effects represent the product of a counterfactual comparison in the same way as average treatment effects (ATEs) from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Both ATEs from RCTs and within-family genetic effects are shallow causes: They operate within intricate causal systems (

Indexed as

FamilyProblem SolvingHumansbehavior geneticscausal inferencecounterfactual reasoningexperimental designsindividual differencesphilosophy of science

Identifiers

PMID35510303

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.