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This chapter discusses the methodologies and results of behavioral genetics studies, focusing on traits such as antisocial behavior, aggression, and behaviors associated with criminal conduct. It describes in detail the classic methods as well as more recent research designs of behavioral genetics studies, along with the various assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses of each approach. It surveys leading scientific research in antisocial personality disorder and explains the known biological and environmental contributions.

This chapter discusses the ways in which biological and genetic factors can influence individual attitudes, cognition, and behavior at work. We argue that there are substantial genetic components to a number of individual difference factors. These effects can then relate directly or indirectly to affect, cognition, and behavior at work, with important implications for outcomes of interest to employees and employers. To illustrate this point, we summarize the available research on genetics in the workplace, and discuss how it relates to extant theories of workplace functioning. We also provide a primer on traditional methods used to examine the influence of genetic factors, discuss how individual differences in attitudes, emotional states, and behavioral tendencies interrelate, and provide general directions for future research.

During the past thirty years considerable strides have been made in demonstrating that genetic effects are of importance for cognitive abilities. The first steps taken were typically to demonstrate that genetic variation contributed significantly to individual differences for various measures of cognitive functioning, both specific and general abilities. During the 1980s and 1990s a number of longitudinal studies of aging in twins were established, and at the same time considerable methodological advances were made for analyzing true age-related change. As a consequence, the new frontier of genetic influences on cognitive aging will be focused on the interface between methodological advancements in modelling cognitive change, topics that are of relevance for cognitive aging, and applications to genetically informative populations. This chapter provides an overview of some of the models and results that have emanated from twin studies of aging. It then describes the areas that represent new frontiers.

Whether leadership is “born or made” has long intrigued theorists, management practitioners and the lay public. While many believe that leadership in iconic figures such as Nelson Mandela must surely be something he was born with, the chapter opens with a study of his early life, effectively demonstrating the complexity of the issue. The effects of exposure to adversity early in one’s life, and social, family and non-familial influences on the later development of leadership, are discussed. Some of the most interesting and provocative recent research findings have shown that genetic factors are also implicated in the question of who emerges as a leader, and on leadership behaviors. While most of this research focuses on high quality leadership, the role of family influences in the development of destructive leadership has also been identified

Psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders are generally considered to be neurodevelopmental in origin. Dysregulated gene and/or protein expression in the brain of adult schizophrenic patients must be understood in the context of a developmental model. This chapter discusses the basic mechanisms of transcriptional regulation and current knowledge of altered gene expression in schizophrenia focusing on glutamatergic and synaptic mechanisms. The relevance of these gene expression changes to neurodevelopment and other potential mechanisms of regulation in schizophrenia, and ideas about intervention to readjust dysregulated expression are considered.

This chapter considers the implications of the genetics of alcoholism for public policy, drawing from reviews as well as original sources. The discussion covers the genetic epidemiology of alcoholism and alcoholism as a moderately to highly heritable addiction. The genetics of alcoholism is a highly active research domain with numerous discoveries that are potentially far-reaching but futuristic in their implications, such as genes that alter alcohol-associated behaviours of Drosophila melanogaster. These studies represent an ongoing and intensifying pursuit of the origins of alcoholism, but generally do not critically inform present-day policy discussion.

This chapter describes different ways in which aggression, rule breaking, and unusual behaviors are defined. This is followed by a discussion on the many approaches to identifying genetic influences on these definitions. After a brief introduction and literature review, the chapter outlines common quantitative measures of unusual behavior, describes the development and subtypes of unusual behavior, and examines behavioral genetic studies of unusual behavior. It also analyzes aggression and unusual behavior from a perspective of twin and adoption studies, as well as of familial variable studies.

This introductory chapter sets up the rest of the book by reviewing previous research about familial influence on politics. The scholarly literature burgeons on many relevant topics. Genetic influences on politics, the tendency of people to choose spouses (and partners) politically like themselves, and parents’ socialization of their children all are seen to connect politics to the family. These explorations have turned up many important and evocative insights. Still, they are generally cautious about expanding into other issue areas or relations. The remaining chapters of the book, summarized here, aim to look at a more diverse set of family influences.

Chapter 2 presents the theoretical framework for the book: a 2 × 2 typology that can help us understand the controversies surrounding genomics. The vertical dimension ranges from a perception that genetic inheritance strongly affects important human phenotypes to a perception that important human phenotypes are affected not by genetic inheritance but rather by environmental context, family and background, free choice, a deity’s will, or luck. The horizontal dimension ranges from technology optimism—a view that the gains from innovation can outweigh its harms—to the opposite, technology pessimism. The two dimensions jointly create four cells: “Enthusiasm,” focusing on the benefits of using the science of genetic influence, “Skepticism,” focusing on the risks of using the science of genetic influence, “Hope,” focusing on developing social improvements through means other than genetic influence, and “Rejection,” which highlights the hubris of both genetic science and social programming.

We are endlessly fascinated by stories of the lives of geniuses and their trials and tribulations in producing their works of lasting significance. We wonder if they are somehow inherently different from the rest of us, or if they just somehow got a better start. Increasingly, however, psychologists are realizing that this nature-nurture dichotomy is an inappropriate way of thinking about the development of excellent achievements. Experience-producing drive theory offers a possible explanatory process: genes serve to drive people to seek the kinds of experiences that build high levels of skill and knowledge that in turn fuel creative achievements. This chapter explores how the theory can be used to understand greatness.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the convergences and divergences between evolution and peace. It analyzes concept of Evolutionarily Stable Strategies, which can usefully be seen through the lens of natural selection, and the Prisoner's Dilemma. It addresses the question of whether we are doomed by our evolutionary past—more precisely, by its imprint upon the present—to a future of unending and eternal war. The answer, clearly, is no. When it comes to violence, whether organized or individual, Homo sapiens are subject to genetic influences, not determinism. But neither can we can take comfort in being innately peace-loving and pacifist. Insofar as we are subject to genetic influences, not determinism, it is equally certain that just as these influences do not mandate violence, neither do they mandate nonviolence. We have within us the biologically generated, Janus-like capacity to face in either direction (or, more confusingly, in both at the same time!), combined with a biologically mandated obligation to neither one.

Relying on two surveys of randomly selected American adults, Chapter 7 first locates the American public within the basic framework’s four quadrants. The surveys—Genomics: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Policies 1 (GKAP 1), and GKAP 2—were conducted in 2011 and 2017, respectively. Both are stratified by race and ethnicity; GKAP 1 includes almost 4,000 respondents and GKAP 2 includes almost 2,000. Survey items address perceptions of genetic influence and levels of technology optimism; in combination, these items enable respondents to be located in the four cells. Chapter 7 then explores demographic characteristics of individuals in particular cells, and views as revealed through coded responses to open-ended questions. Key findings include: about three-fifths of Americans are Enthusiatic; genetics knowledge is associated with Enthusiasm; racial or partisan differences have little impact on quadrant location; the Hopeful and especially Enthusiasts are committed to medical research or to criminal justice; Skeptics are mistrustful and protective of privacy; Rejecters seek withdrawal and self-protection.

A separate quantitative research study was done of family background characteristics of all Nobel laureates in science from the Nobel inception year of 1901 until 2003, in comparison with two control groups living during the same period: a group of internationally eminent persons and a longitudinally studied very-high-IQ one. In distinction to both control groups, a significantly high number of science laureates, like a group of literary prize winners in a previous study, had parents of their gender who were in an applied or performance-related type of occupation. Many of the applied science parents also had unfulfilled wishes to be pure or investigative scientists. The probable effect of genetic factors and the influence of this family background constellation on the offspring Nobel laureates’ intense motivations to be creative scientists are both discussed.

Chapter 4 examines two of the cells in the basic framework: “Enthusiasm” about the benefits of using the science of genetic inheritance, and “Skepticism” about the risks of using the science of genetic inheritance. For each viewpoint, this chapter explores arenas within medical and scientific research (including gene therapy, the search for Covid-19 vaccines, and gene editing), criminal justice (including forensic DNA databases, rapid DNA testing, and exoneration), and biogeographical ancestry (including racial and ethnic ancestry testing, race-based medicine, and deep ancestry). Chapter 4 provides evidence to support both excitement about the benefits of genomic science and concern about its risks and costs.

Chapter 6 examines how various categories of experts fit in the quadrants of the basic framework, and why. It uses three sources of evidence: a coded database of almost 2,000 genomics-related articles by legal scholars and social scientists in thirteen disciplines; two online, open-ended surveys of several hundred social science experts who responded to questions organized around the basic framework; and almost sixty in-person, open-ended interviews with genomics experts, many in positions of public authority. The chapter shows that the most methodologically individualist and most scientific social science disciplines are especially likely to fall into the “Enthusiastic” quadrant, whereas the most humanistic are least likely to do so. Individual experts range across the cells of the basic typology, with views ultimately resting on judgments about humans’ capacity to learn and to act for the good of others.