Correlations Between Social Dominance Orientation and Political Attitudes Reflect Common Genetic Underpinnings: A Twin Study

• DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/9bfaj
• Publication Date: 2019-05-15T09:52:46Z
• Authors: Thomas Haarklau K...
• Keywords: Social dominance orientation; Egalitarianism; Dominance (genetics); Nature versus nurture

A foundational question in the social sciences concerns interplayof underlying causes formation of people’s politicalbeliefs and prejudices. What role, if any, do genes, environmentalinfluences, or personality dispositions play? Social DominanceOrientation (SDO), an influential index general attitudestoward intergroup hierarchy, correlates robustly with politicalbeliefs. SDO consists sub-dimensions SDO-Dominance(SDO-D), which is desire people have for some groups to beactively oppressed by others, SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E), apreference inequality. Using a twin design (N =1987), we investigate dominance andinequality makes up genetically grounded behavioral syndrome.Specifically, heritability SDO, addition towhether it support political policiesconcerning distribution power resources differentsocial groups. In moderate estimates forSDO-D SDO-E (37% 24%, respectively), find that thegenetic correlation between these politicalattitudes was overall high (mean genetic 0.51), whilethe environmental very low environmentalcorrelation 0.08). This suggests relationship betweenpolitical attitudes SDO-D commongenetics, such (versus opposition to) intergroupinequality serve enhance(versus attenuate) societal disparities form convergent strategiesfor navigating group-based hierarchies.