The heritability fallacy

The fact that genes and environment contribute differentially to variation in human behaviors, traits and attitudes is central to the field of behavior genetics. To the public, perceptions about these differential contributions may affect ideas about human agency. We surveyed two independent samples (N = 301 and N = 740) to assess beliefs about free will, determinism, political orientation, and the relative contribution of genes and environment to 21 human traits. We find that beliefs about the heritability of these traits cluster into four distinct groups, which differentially predict both beliefs about human agency and political orientation. Despite apparent ideological influences on these beliefs, the correspondence between lay judgments of heritabilities and published estimates is large (r = .77). Belief in genetic determinism emerges as a modest predictor of accuracy in these judgments. Additionally, educated mothers with multiple children emerge as particularly accurate in their judgments of the heritabilities of these traits.

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science

According to the 'first law' of behavior genetics, 'All human behavioral traits are heritable.' Accepting the validity of this first law and employing statistical methods, researchers within psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and business claim to have demonstrated that all the behaviors studied by their disciplines are heritable-no matter how culturally specific these behaviors appear to be. Further, in many cases they claim to have identified specific genes that play a role in those behaviors. The validity of behavior genetics as a discipline depends upon the validity of the research methods used to justify such claims. It also depends, foundationally, upon certain key assumptions concerning the relationship between genotype (one's specific DNA sequences) and phenotype (any and all observable traits or characteristics). In this article, I examine-and find serious flaws with-both the methodologies of behavior genetics and the underlying assumptions concerning the genotype-phenotype relationship.

European Journal of Personality

Johnson, Penke, and Spinath (2011) provide many productive insights regarding the study of gene–environment transactions and go further than most others in questioning the basic premise that specific genotype–personality linkages exist at all. The current commentary elaborates upon these issues in relation to the concept of ‘reactive heritability’, which occurs when a personality trait is facultatively calibrated over development in response to other heritable phenotypic features. Importantly, this concept may help resolve perceived conflicts between the existence of heritable personality variation and the hypothesis of a universal human nature.

The Hastings Center Report, 2004

Once the grant was under way, Audrey, Mark, Elving and I were joined by Catherine Baker and Nancy Press to form a steering committee that shared the responsibility for making all of the decisions relevant to the project, from setting meeting agendas to identifying background readings, holding a public meeting in Washington, D.C., and creating a primer of behavioral genetics, a book of essays, and this report. Working with Nancy, Cathy, Audrey, Mark, and Elving was a pleasure and an honor. The steering committee was part of a larger working group, whose members are listed on the facing page. On some topics, additional help was provided by consultants:

Acta Biotheoretica, 1992

This paper discusses the widespread use of heritability calculations in recent behaviour research including behaviour genetics. In the sequel, a radical criticism concerning the basic axioms of the underlying, more general concept itself is presented. The starling point for testing the proclaimed universal validity of this concept stems from a fictitious yet realistic example taken from learning research. The theoretical result, based on the application of the conventional reasoning in this field, states that developmental processes-and learning is only one specific case out of an immense number of similar behavioural mechanisms-can neither be adequately described nor causally explained with sufficient reliability within the context of the heredity paradigm. On the contrary, an inherent inconsistency of the concept itself when applied to behaviour processes is demonstrated. Finally, a conceptual alternative involving a systems-theoretical approach to the problem is presented: In such a perspective it is the concept of "cognition" which represents the adequate explanatory theorem-a theorem in which quantitative processing of "information" from the environment is clearly revealed to belong to a subordinate level of living organization.

Philosophy of Science, 2005

The method in human genetics of ascribing causal responsibility to genotype by the use of heritability estimates has been heavily criticized over the years. It has been argued that these estimates are rarely valid and do not serve the purpose of tracing genetic causes. Recent contributions strike back at this criticism. I present and discuss two opposing views on these matters represented by Richard Lewontin and Neven Sesardic, and I suggest that some of the disagreement is based on differing concepts of genetic causation. I use the distinction of structuring and triggering causes to help clarifying the basis for the opposing views.

Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2002

Psihologijske teme, 2017

The aim of this study is to simplify the issue of the concept of heritability, to give an introduction to the behavioral genetic theory and methods, as well as to give an overview of the current knowledge about heritability of personality and the quantitative and molecular genetic approach to estimate heritability. Following that, results on heritability of personality are summarized. In addition, we reanalyzed all available behavioral genetic studies published before 2010, which were included in Vukasović and Bratko (2015) meta-analysis, to estimate the correlations between different family members: 1) monozygotic twins reared together; 2) monozygotic twins reared apart; 3) dizygotic twins reared together; 4) dizygotic twins reared apart; 5) mother and offspring; 6) father and offspring. Estimates of the family resemblance for personality were .54 from intraclass correlations for twin pairs reared together, .45 for intraclass correlations for monozygotic twin pairs reared apart, an...

2013

The nature-nurture debate is surely among the oldest in behavioral science. The last decade in particular has been a period of intense investigation aimed at apportioning the responsibility for behavior among hereditary and environmental components. Very recently the results of eight years of twin research at the University of Minnesota have made headline news, even though these results have, for the most part, not yet appeared in the journals. The thrust of the reports on this study, and other similar ones on twins and adoptees that have appeared in the last ten yea.rs, is that the personality similarities that have been observed to hold between identical twins who have been reared apart (and between adoptees and their biological parents) establish with certainty that much of complex human behavior is determined genetically. What exactly it means to say that "heredity has a greater influence on one's personality and behavior than either one's upbringing or the most cru...

2021

Uchiyama et al. question heritability estimates in a convincing manner. We offer additional arguments to further bolster their claims, highlighting methodological issues in heritability coefficients’ derivation, their misuse in various contexts, and their potential contributions to exacerbating common erroneous intuitions that have been shown to lead to deleterious social phenomena. We conclude that science should move away from using them.