Genetic Influence on Human Psychological Traits: A Survey

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Genetic Influence on Human Psychological Traits: A Survey Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr.

2004 American Psychological Society

"In this review, I have addressed only the behavior genetic analysis of traits taken one at a time (univariate analysis). It is important to recognize that it is possible to carry out complex genetic analyses of the correlations among traits and compute genetic correlations. These correlations tell us the degree to which genetic effects on one score (trait measure) are correlated with genetic effects on a second score, at one or at many points in time. The genetic correlation between two traits can be quite high regardless of whether the heritability of either trait is high or low, or whether the correlation between the traits is high or low. Consider the well-known positive correlation between tests of mental ability, the evidentiary base for the general intelligence factor. This value is typically about .30. The genetic correlation between such tests is, however, much higher, typically closer to .80. Cooccurrence of two disorders, a common finding in psychiatric research, is often due to common genes. The genetic correlation between anxiety and depression, for example, is estimated to be very high. Multivariate genetic analysis of behavioral traits is a very active domain of research. "

 http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf

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