Compassion Has Genetic Basis: Research
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'Altruism Gene' Associated With Higher Willingness to Donate, Researchers Find
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2010) — Do you like to do good things for other people? If so, your genes might be responsible for this. At least, the results of a study conducted by researchers of the University of Bonn suggest this. According to the study, a minute change in a particular gene is associated with a significantly higher willingness to donate. People with this change gave twice as much money on average to a charitable cause as did other study subjects.
The results have now been published in the journal Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience.
The researchers working with the psychologist Professor Dr. Martin Reuter invited their students to take a "retention test": The roughly 100 participants were to memorize series of numbers and then repeat them as correctly as possible. They received the sum of five Euros for doing this. Afterwards, they could either take their hard-earned money home or donate any portion of it to a charitable cause. This decision was made freely and in apparent anonymity. "However, we always knew how much money was in the cash box beforehand and could therefore calculate the amount donated," explains Reuter.
The scientists had asked their study subjects to undergo a cheek swab beforehand. They were able to extract DNA for genetic analyses from the cells thus sampled. In these analyses, they focused on one gene, the so-called COMT gene. It contains the building instructions for an enzyme which inactivates certain messengers in the brain. The most well-known of these messengers is dopamine.
It has been known for nearly 15 years that there are two different variants of the COMT gene: COMT-Val and COMT-Met. Both versions, which occur in the population with approximately equal frequency, differ in only a single building block. In the case of people with the COMT-Val variant, the associated enzyme works up to four times more effectively. Thus considerably more dopamine is inactivated in the brain of a person with this variant.
Mini-Mutation Affects Behavior
This mini-mutation also has effects on behavior: "Students with the COMT-Val gene donated twice as much money on average as did fellow students with the COMT-Met variant," explains Reuter. This is the first time that researchers have been able to establish a connection between a particular gene and altruistic deeds. However, it was already known from studies on twins that altruistic behavior is also partly influenced by our genes.
There is a good reason why the Bonn scientists focused their analysis on the COMT gene: For several years, it has been known that dopamine is involved in controlling social behavior in animals and humans. Thus the messenger, together with substances such as the neuropeptide vasopressin, influences sexuality and bonding. In addition, dopamine is linked with positive emotionality. Even the characteristic of being motivated by stimuli is controlled by this important neurotransmitter.
Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101108072309.htm
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
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Is there a special gene for people who are willing to give away other peoples money with abandon but not their own?
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
LOL
My question exactly.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Scientists say they've found the 'liberal gene'
Nurture, as well as nature, plays role in ideology, researchers find
Advertisement | ad info By Liz DayIs political ideology derived from a person's social environment or is it a result of genetic predisposition?
It's an interaction of both, according to a recent study on our political leanings that boosts both sides of the nature versus nurture debate.
Scientists at the University of California San Diego and Harvard University determined that people who carry a variant of the DRD4 gene are more likely to be liberals as adults, depending on the number of friendships they had during high school. They published their study in a recent issue of The Journal of Politics.
Data was analyzed from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (the same source for a recent study that found intelligent children drink more alcohol as adults).
The four authors, including UCSD's James Fowler, wanted to explore if politics were heritable by identifying a specific gene variant associated with political leaning. They hypothesized that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences would tend to be more liberal.
The 7R variant of DRD4, a dopamine receptor gene, had previously been associated with novelty seeking. The researchers theorized novelty seeking would be related to openness, a psychological trait that has been associated with political liberalism.
However, social environment was critical. The more friends gene carriers have in high school, the more likely they are to be liberals as adults. The authors write, "Ten friends can move a person with two copies of 7R allele almost halfway from being a conservative to moderate or from being moderate to liberal."
They theorize a larger social network may bring more diverse viewpoints, which could be an influence on the liberal development.
Neither the gene nor social networks alone influenced political identification.
Participants without the gene had no relationship between number of friends and ideology.
The sample consisted of over 2,500 individuals. Respondents were asked during their high school years to name five female and five male friends. The number of nonfamilial friends named was the measure of their social network.
Respondents were later asked in their early 20s to identify themselves as "very conservative," "conservative," "middle-of-the-road," "liberal," or "very liberal."
Prior studies on twins had found that about a third of variation in political attitudes could be attributed to genes and approximately half of the variation explained by environment.
This study purports to be the first to identify a specific gene associated with politics.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39891927/ns/technology_and_science-science/
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Strange, very strange. I don't know if I have the gene, but I had maybe 3-5 people total I thought of as friends in high school. And I don't recall being very connected with them, either. High school was dreary - I read sci-fi in class through most of it.
When I was 18-25 or so, I considered myself to be moderately conservative. My hippie friends thought I was somewhere to the right of Ghengis Khan. I firmly believed (and still believe) that for profit businesses should make a profit. I now firmly believe that for profit corporations don't need to spend over a billion dollars on a CEO. Or even over 100 million. That is obscene and no one, absolutely no one is worth that much money, not me, not you, not anyone. So now I am considered by my conservative friends to be somewhere to the left of Karl Marx. I don't think I've changed all that much.
I now consider myself liberal - but it is the religion thing, mostly. I refuse absolutely totally to vote for someone who advocates religion as the foundation of any government. Given how the republicans are usually sucking up to the religious right, they have lost my vote until they lose their religion.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.