Educational Attainment and Personality Are Genetically Intertwined.

Psychol Sci
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Keywords
Abstract

Heritable variance in psychological traits may reflect genetic and biological processes that are not necessarily specific to these particular traits but pertain to a broader range of phenotypes. We tested the possibility that the personality domains of the five-factor model and their 30 facets, as rated by people themselves and their knowledgeable informants, reflect polygenic influences that have been previously associated with educational attainment. In a sample of more than 3,000 adult Estonians, education polygenic scores (EPSs), which are interpretable as estimates of molecular-genetic propensity for education, were correlated with various personality traits, particularly from the neuroticism and openness domains. The correlations of personality traits with phenotypic educational attainment closely mirrored their correlations with EPS. Moreover, EPS predicted an aggregate personality trait tailored to capture the maximum amount of variance in educational attainment almost as strongly as it predicted the attainment itself. We discuss possible interpretations and implications of these findings.

Year of Publication
2017
Journal
Psychol Sci
Volume
28
Issue
11
Pages
1631-1639
Date Published
2017 Nov
ISSN
1467-9280
DOI
10.1177/0956797617719083
PubMed ID
28910230
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