Heritability of personality: A meta-analysis of behavior genetic studies

Psychological Bulletin

Volumn 141, Issue 4, 2015, Pages 769-785

  Vukasović, Tena ^a   Bratko, Denis ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB   (Croatia)

Author keywords

Behavior genetics; Heritability; Meta analysis; Personality

Indexed keywords

ADOPTION; ADULT; BEHAVIOR; BIOLOGICAL MODEL; FAMILY; FEMALE; GENETICS; HUMAN; META ANALYSIS; PERSONALITY; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGY; QUANTITATIVE TRAIT; SEX DIFFERENCE; TWINS;

ADOPTION; ADULT; BEHAVIOR; FAMILY; FEMALE; HUMANS; MODELS, GENETIC; PERSONALITY; QUANTITATIVE TRAIT, HERITABLE; SEX FACTORS; TWIN STUDIES AS TOPIC;

EID: 84934829884     PISSN: 00332909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/bul0000017     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. Ahern, F. M., Johnson, R. C., Wilson, J. R., McClearn, G. E., & Vandenberg, S. G. (1982). Family resemblances in personality. Behavior Genetics, 12, 261-280. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01067847
2. Baker, L. A., & Daniels, D. (1990). Nonshared environmental influences and personality differences in adult twins. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 103-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514 .58.1.103
3. Bouchard, T. J., Jr. (1993). Genetic and environmental influences on adult personality: Evaluating the evidence. In I. Deary & J. Hettema (Eds.), Basic issues in personality (pp. 15-44). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1660-2_2
4. Bouchard, T. J., Jr. (1997). The genetics of personality. In K. Blum & E. P. Noble (Eds.), Handbook of psychiatric genetics (pp. 273-296). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
5. Bouchard, T. J., Jr., & Loehlin, J. C. (2001). Genes, evolution, and personality. Behavior Genetics, 31, 243-273. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1012294324713
6. Bratko, D., & Butković, A. (2007). Stability of genetic and environmental effects from adolescence to young adulthood: Results of Croatian longitudinal twin study of personality. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 10, 151-157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.10.1.151
7. Bratko, D., & Marušić, I. (1997). Family study of the Big Five personality dimensions. Personality and Individual Differences, 23, 365-369. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(97)00081-0
8. Carey, G. (2002). Human genetics for the social sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
9. Cattell, R. B. (1943). The description of personality: Basic traits resolved into clusters. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38, 476-506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0054116
10. Cattell, R. B. (1953). Research designs in psychological genetics with special reference to the multiple variance method. American Journal of Human Genetics, 5, 76-93.
11. Cattell, R. B. (1960). The multiple abstract variance analysis equations and solutions: For nature-nurture research on continuous variables. Psychological Review, 67, 353-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0043487
12. Cattell, R. B., Rao, D. C., & Schuerger, J. M. (1985). Heritability in the personality control system: Ego strength (C), super ego strength (G) and the self sentiment (Q3), by the MAVA model, Q-data, and maximum likelihood analyses. Social Behavior and Personality, 13, 33-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.2224/sbp.1985.13.1.33
13. Cooper, H., Hedges, L. V., & Valentine, J. C. (2009). The handbook of research synthesis and meta-analysis (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
14. Coppen, A., Cowie, V., & Slater, E. (1965). Familial aspects of "neuroticism" and "extraversion." The British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 70-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.111.470.70
15. Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
16. DeYoung, C. G., Peterson, J. B., & Higgins, D. M. (2002). Higher-order factors of the Big Five predict conformity: Are there neuroses of health? Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 533-552. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00171-4
17. Digman, J. M. (1997). Higher-order factors of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1246-1256. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1246
18. Distel, M. A., Trull, T. J., Willemsen, G., Vink, J. M., Derom, C. A., Lynskey, M., . . . Boomsma, D. I. (2009). The five-factor model of personality and borderline personality disorder: A genetic analysis of comorbidity. Biological Psychiatry, 66, 1131-1138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.07.017
19. Eaves, L., Eysenck, H., & Martin, N. (1989). Genes, culture and personality: An empirical approach. London, England: Academic.
20. Eaves, L., Heath, A., Martin, N., Maes, H., Neale, M., Kendler, K., Corey, L. (1999). Comparing the biological and cultural inheritance of personality and social attitudes in the Virginia 30,000 study of twins and their relatives. Twin Research, 2, 62-80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/136905299320565933
21. Eaves, L. J., Heath, A. C., Neale, M. C., Hewitt, J. K., & Martin, N. G. (1998). Sex differences and non-additivity in the effects of genes on personality. Twin Research, 1, 131-137.
22. Eysenck, H. J. (1956). The inheritance of extraversion-introversion. Acta Psychologica, 12, 95-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(56)90010-5
23. Eysenck, H. J. (1970). The structure of human personality (3rd ed.). London, England: Methuen.
24. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (junior and adult versions). Kent, England: Hodder & Stoughton.
25. Eysenck, H. J., & Prell, D. B. (1951). The inheritance of neuroticism: An experimental study. Journal of Mental Science, 97, 441-465. http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.97.408.441
26. Eysenck, S. B. G, Eysenck, H. J., & Barrett, P. (1985). A revised version of the psychoticism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 21-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(85)90026-1
27. Fanous, A., Gardner, C. O., Prescott, C. A., Cancro, R., & Kendler, K. S. (2002). Neuroticism, major depression and gender: A population-based twin study. Psychological Medicine, 32, 719-728. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S003329170200541X
28. Finkel, D., & McGue, M. (1997). Sex differences and nonadditivity in heritability of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 929-938. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.4.929
29. Floderus-Myrhed, B., Pedersen, N., & Rasmuson, I. (1980). Assessment of heritability for personality, based on a short-form of the Eysenck Personality Inventory: A study of 12,898 twin pairs. Behavior Genetics, 10, 153-162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01066265
30. Gillespie, N. A., Evans, D. E., Wright, M. M., & Martin, N. G. (2004). Genetic simplex modeling of Eysenck's dimensions of personality in a sample of young Australian twins. Twin Research, 7, 637-648. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/1369052042663814
31. Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216-1229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216
32. Gough, H. G. (1956). California Psychological Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
33. Hayes, A. F., & Krippendorff, K. (2007). Answering the call for a standard reliability measure for coding data. Communication Methods and Measures, 1, 77-89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19312450709336664
34. Heath, A. C., & Martin, N. G. (1990). Psychoticism as a dimension of personality: A multivariate genetic test of Eysenck and Eysenck's psychoticism construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 111-121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.1.111
35. Higgins, J. P. T., & Thompson, S. G. (2002). Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine, 21, 1539-1558. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sim.1186
36. Hur, Y.-M. (2007). Evidence for nonadditive genetic effects on Eysenck personality scales in South Korean twins. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 10, 373-378. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.10.2.373
37. Insel, P. M. (1974). Maternal effects in personality. Behavior Genetics, 4, 133-143.
38. Jang, K. L., Livesley, W. J., Ando, J., Yamagata, S., Suzuki, A., Angleitner, A., . . . Spinath, F. (2006). Behavioral genetics of the higher-order factors of the Big Five. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 261-272. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.11.033
39. Jang, K. L., Livesley, W. J., & Vernon, P. A. (1996). Heritability of the Big Five personality dimensions and their facets: A twin study. Journal of Personality, 64, 577-592. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996 .tb00522.x
40. John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 114-158). New York: NY: Guilford Press.
41. Johnson, A. M., Vernon, P. A., & Feiler, A. R. (2008). Behavioral genetic studies of personality: An introduction and review of the results of 50_ years of research. In G. J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D. H. Saklofske (Eds.), The Sage handbook of personality theory and assessment. Vol. 1: Personality theories and models (pp. 145-173). London, England: Sage.
42. Johnson, W., McGue, M., & Krueger, R. F. (2005). Personality stability in late adulthood: A behavioral genetic analysis. Journal of Personality, 73, 523-552. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00319.x
43. Kandler, C., Riemann, R., Spinath, F. M., & Angleitner, A. (2010). Sources of variance in personality facets: A multiple-rater twin study of self-peer, peer-peer, and self-self (dis)agreement. Journal of Personality, 78, 1565-1594. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00661.x
44. Keller, M. C., Coventry, W. L., Heath, A. C., & Martin, N. G. (2005). Widespread evidence for non-additive genetic variation in Cloninger's and Eysenck's personality dimensions using a twin plus sibling design. Behavior Genetics, 35, 707-721. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10519-005-6041-7
45. Kendler, K. S., Myers, J., Potter, J., & Opalesky, J. (2009). A web-based study of personality, psychopathology and substance use in twin, other relative and relationship pairs. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 12, 137-141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.12.2.137
46. Konstantopoulos, S. (2011). Fixed effects and variance components estimation in three-level meta-analysis. Research Synthesis Methods, 2, 61-76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.35
47. Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (2005). Personality psychology: Domains of knowledge about human nature (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
48. Lensvelt-Mulders, G., & Hettema, J. (2001). Analysis of genetic influences on the consistency and variability of the Big Five across different stressful situations. European Journal of Personality, 15, 355-371. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.414
49. Lipsey, M. W., & Wilson, D. B. (1993). The efficacy of psychological, educational, and behavioral treatment. Confirmation from meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 48, 1181-1209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.48.12.1181
50. Loehlin, J. C. (1978). Are CPI scales differently heritable: How good is the evidence? Behavior Genetics, 8, 381-382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01067402
51. Loehlin, J. C. (1982). Are personality traits differentially heritable? Behavior Genetics, 12, 417-428. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01065633
52. Loehlin, J. C. (1992). Genes and environment in personality development. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
53. Loehlin, J. C. (2012). The differential heritability of personality item clusters. Behavior Genetics, 42, 500-507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10519-011-9515-9
54. Loehlin, J. C., Horn, J. M., & Willerman, L. (1981). Personality resemblance in adoptive families. Behavior Genetics, 11, 309-330. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01070814
55. Loehlin, J. C., & Martin, N. (2001). Age changes in personality traits and their heritabilities during the adult years: Evidence from Australian twin registry samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 1147-1160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00099-4
56. Loehlin, J. C., McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T., Jr., & John, O. P. (1998). Heritabilities of common and measure-specific components of the Big Five personality factors. Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 431-453. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1998.2225
57. Losoya, S. H., Callor, S., Rowe, D. C., & Goldsmith, H. H. (1997). Origins of familial similarity in parenting: A study of twins and adoptive siblings. Developmental Psychology, 33, 1012-1023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.1012
58. Martin, N., Goodwin, G., Fairburn, C., Wilson, R., Allison, D., Cardon, L. R., & Flint, J. (2000). A population-based study of personality in 34,000 sib-pairs. Twin Research, 3, 310-315.
59. Nagoshi, C. T., Johnson, R. C., & Honbo, K. A. M. (1992). Assortative mating for cognitive abilities, personality, and attitudes: Offspring from the Hawaii family study of cognition. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 883-891. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(92)90005-A
60. Oniszczenko, W., & Jakubowska, U. (2005). Genetic determinants and personality correlates of sociopolitical attitudes in a Polish sample. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 8, 47-52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin .8.1.47
61. Orwin, R. G. (1983). A fail-safe N for effect size in meta-analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 8, 157-159. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/10769986008002157
62. Pace, V. L., & Brannick, M. T. (2010). How similar are personality scales of the "same" construct? A meta-analytic investigation. Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 669-676. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid .2010.06.014
63. Pedersen, N. L., Plomin, R., McClearn, G. E., & Friberg, L. (1988). Neuroticism, extraversion, and related traits in adult twins reared apart and reared together. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 950-957. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.55.6.950
64. Pincombe, J. L., Luciano, M., Martin, N. G., & Wright, M. J. (2007).Heritability of NEO PI-R extraversion facets and their relationship with IQ. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 10, 462-469. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.10.3.462
65. Plomin, R., Corley, R., Caspi, A., Fulker, D. W., & DeFries, J. (1998). Adoption results for self-reported personality: Evidence for nonadditive genetic effects? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 211-218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.211
66. Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., Knopik, V. S., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (2013). Behavioral genetics (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth.
67. Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & McClearn, G. E. (1990). Behavioral genetics: A primer (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Freeman.
68. Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., McClearn, G. E., & McGuffin, P. (2008). Behavioral genetics (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth.
69. Rettew, D. C., Rebollo-Mesa, I., Hudziak, J. J., Willemsen, G., & Boomsma, D. I. (2008). Non-additive and additive genetic effects on extraversion in 3314 Dutch adolescent twins and their parents. Behavior Genetics, 38, 223-233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10519-008-9192-5
70. Rettew, D. C., Vink, J. M., Willemsen, G., Doyle, A., Hudziak, J. J., & Boomsma, D. I. (2006). The genetic architecture of neuroticism in 3301 Dutch adolescent twins as a function of age and sex: A study from the Dutch twin register. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 9, 24-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.9.1.24
71. Riemann, R., Angleitner, A., & Strelau, J. (1997). Genetic and environmental influences on personality: A study of twins reared together using the self-and peer report NEO-FFI scales. Journal of Personality, 65, 449-475. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997.tb00324.x
72. Rose, R. J., Koskenvuo, M., Kaprio, J., Sarna, S., & Langinvainio, H. (1988). Shared genes, shared experiences, and similarity of personality: Data from 14,288 adult Finnish co-twins. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 161-171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514 .54.1.161
73. Rosenthal, R. (1979). The "file-drawer problem" and tolerance for null results. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 638-641. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.3.638
74. Saudino, K. J., Pedersen, N. L., Lichtenstein, P., McClearn, G. E., & Plomin, R. (1997). Can personality explain genetic influences on life events? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 196-206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.1.196
75. Scarr, S., Webber, P. L., Weinberg, R. A., & Wittig, M. A. (1981). Personality resemblance among adolescents and their parents in biologically related and adoptive families. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 885-898. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.40.5 .885
76. Shields, J. (1958). Twins brought up apart. The Eugenics Review, 50, 115-123.
77. South, S. C., Krueger, R. F., Johnson, W., & Iacono, W. G. (2008). Adolescent personality moderates genetic and environmental influences on relationships with parents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 899-912. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.5.899
78. Tambs, K., Sundet, J. M., Eaves, L., Solaas, M. H., & Berg, K. (1991). Pedigree analysis of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) scores in monozygotic (MZ) twin families. Behavior Genetics, 21, 369-382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01065973
79. Tellegen, A. (1982). Brief manual for the Differential Personality Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
80. Tellegen, A., Lykken, D. T., Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Wilcox, K. J., Segal, N. L., & Rich, S. (1988). Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1031-1039. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1031
81. Turkheimer, E., Pettersson, E., & Horn, E. E. (2014). A phenotypic null hypothesis for the genetics of personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 515-540. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143752
82. Valera, E. M., & Berenbaum, H. (2001). A twin study of alexithymia. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 70, 239-246. http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000056261
83. van den Berg, S. M., de Moor, M. H., McGue, M., Pettersson, E., Terracciano, A., Verweij, K. J., . . . Boomsma, D. I. (2014). Harmonization of neuroticism and Extraversion phenotypes across inventories and cohorts in the Genetics of Personality Consortium: An application of the item response theory. Behavior Genetics, 44, 295-313. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10519-014-9654-x
84. Van den Noortgate, W., López-López, J. A., Marín-Martínez, F., & Sánchez-Meca, J. (2013). Three-level meta-analysis of dependent effect sizes. Behavior Research Methods, 45, 576-594. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0261-6
85. Vernon, P. A., Martin, R. A., Schermer, J. A., & Mackie, A. (2008). A behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the Big-5 personality dimensions. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1116-1125. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.003
86. Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package. Journal of Statistical Software, 36, 1-48. http://www.jstatsoft .org/v36/i03/paper
87. Vukasović, T., Bratko, D., & Butković, A. (2009). From specific reactions to aggregated dimensions of personality: Familial aggregation estimate in the function of construct width. Contemporary Psychology, 12, 323-339.
88. Weiss, A., Bates, T. C., & Luciano, M. (2008). Happiness is a personal-(ity) thing: The genetics of personality and well-being in a representative sample. Psychological Science, 19, 205-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02068.x
89. Wray, N. R., Birley, A. J., Sullivan, P. F., Visscher, P. M., & Martin, N. G. (2007). Genetic and phenotypic stability of measures of neuroticism over 22 years. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 10, 695-702. http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.10.5.695