Misuse of hierarchical linear models overstates the significance of a reported association between OXTR and prosociality

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volumn 109, Issue 18, 2012, Pages

  Jostins, Luke ^a   Pickrell, Joseph K ^b   MacArthur, Daniel G ^c   Barrett, Jeffrey C ^a  

^a WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INSTITUTE   (United Kingdom)

^b HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL   (United States)

^c MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

OXYTOCIN RECEPTOR;

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT; CORRELATION ANALYSIS; FALSE POSITIVE RESULT; GENETIC ASSOCIATION; GENOTYPE; HIERARCHICAL LINEAR MODEL; HUMAN; LETTER; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SAMPLE SIZE; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL STATUS; STATISTICAL MODEL; STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE;

ALLELES; COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOR; EMPATHY; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; RECEPTORS, OXYTOCIN;

EID: 84860812553     PISSN: 00278424     EISSN: 10916490     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1202539109     Document Type: Letter

References (5)

1. Kogan A, et al. (2011) Thin-slicing study of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and the evaluation and expression of the prosocial disposition. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 19189-19192.
2. Ripke S, et al. (2011) Genome-wide association study identifies five new schizophrenia loci. Nat Genet 43:969-976.
3. Franke A, et al. (2010) Genome-wide meta-analysis increases to 71 the number of confirmed Crohn's disease susceptibility loci. Nat Genet 42:1118-1125.
4. Bryk A, Raudenbush S (1992) Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA).
5. Bates D, Maechler M (2010) lme4: Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using S4 Classes. R Package Version 0.999375-37. Available at http://cran.r-project.org/ package=lme4. Accessed March 25, 2012.