Friendships Moderate an Association between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology

In my chapter the ape that domesticated itself I strive toward a bio-social theory for humans and invoke recent work on a number of variants of prominent neuro-transmitters. These cases are prime examples of the subtle ways in which we are discovering that genes and the cultural environment interact to produce a number of behavioural phenotypes in human populations. I mention the 4R and 7R variants of the dopamine receptor at great length and in this fascinating paper the authors take these dopamine receptor variants into the realm of politics - specifically pointing out that a combination of the long 7R allele of DRD4 and a strong and functional circle of friends will produce a person with liberal tendencies. Heres the abstract:

"Scholars in many fields have long noted the importance of social context in the development of political ideology. Recent work suggests that political ideology also has a heritable component, but no specific gene variant or combination of variants associated with political ideology have so far been identified. Here, we hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences will tend to be more liberal, but only if they are embedded in a social context that provides them with multiple points of view. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we test this hypothesis by investigating an association between self-reported political ideology and the 7R variant of the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), which has previously been associated with novelty seeking. Among those with DRD4-7R, we find that the number of friendships a person has in adolescence is significantly associated with liberal political ideology. Among those without the gene variant, there is no association. This is the first study to elaborate a specific gene-environment interaction that contributes to ideological self-identification, and it highlights the importance of incorporating both nature and nurture into the study of political preferences."