'Niceness' partly genetic, say scientistsAFP: Selflessness and civic-mindedness can be inherited, especially if you are a woman, according to a new study...
The study, published in Biology Letters, adds to a growing body of research suggesting that the drivers of human behaviour are found, more than previously suspected, in 'Nature' rather than 'Nurture.'...
University of Edinburgh scientists Gary Lewis and Timothy Bates looked at self-assessments of nearly 1,000 pairs of twins in the United States to see how 'pro-social' they were. Some of the twins were identical and the others were fraternal... Lewis explained...'Identical twins which share 100 per cent of their genes, are more similar than non-identical twins, who share only 50 per cent. You can infer genetic influence because of that biological fact.'...
Previous research, notably with infants too young to have been fully socialised already suggested humans have an inbuilt capacity for empathy. In their twins study, Lewis and Bates broke down that impulse in adults into three 'pro-social' areas: a sense of civic duty, job commitment and concern for the welfare for others... Those who felt the greatest impulse for generosity were identical female twins... The difference was much less pronounced among men...
The Independent: Women have a stronger genetic predisposition to help other people compared with men... The research... found that about half of 'prosocial' traits -- the willingness to help others -- identified in women could be linked with genes rather than environmental upbringing, while the figure was just 20 per cent in men..
'It seems that there is a general prosocial personality'... Mr. Lewis said. 'We found that in women there was quite a strong genetic influence on this type of prosociality but in men there was less of a genetic influence... For women on this general prosociality personality it was about half and half: genetic factors were about 50 per cent. For men, it was less genetically influenced. About 20 per cent.'...
'What we are really saying here suggests interventions that encourage socially conscious behaviours may be useful but some individuals may be instinctively more prosocial than others.'
