A new study by Pennsylvania State University in State College, the University of Oregon in Eugene, and Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, CT, followed sets of siblings in an effort to better understand whether our moral compass is solely down to our upbringing, or whether our genetic inheritance also has a say in the matter.
Amanda Ramos from Penn State University, refers to a person’s moral qualities as their “virtuous character” and explains that both nurture and nature could work together to shape them. A lot of studies have shown a link between parenting and these virtuous traits, but they haven’t looked at the genetic component.
Researchers conducted a study investigating the extent to which “virtuous character” is a heritable trait.
They worked with 720 pairs of siblings with different degrees of relatedness. They ranged from identical twins who grew up together in the same environment to half-siblings and step-siblings with no common genetic material but who grew up under the same roof.
“If identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins, for example, it’s assumed there’s a genetic influence,” says Ramos.
Including multiple degrees of relatedness can give you more power to disentangle the genetic influences from the shared environment.” They assessed the relevant data-such as parental practices and the children’s apparent sense of responsibility- in two rounds: first, during the siblings’ adolescent periods, and then again when they were young adults.
Researchers discovered that nurture, in the form of positive parenting – that is, reinforcing and rewarding good behavior did correlate with a stronger sense of responsibility in the children. However, they point out that this association was notably more visible in siblings who not only grew up in the same environment, but who were also related by blood. Genetics and parenting have an effect on these characteristics. The way children act or behave is due, in part, to genetic similarity and parents respond to those child behaviors. The behaviors are having an influence on the children’s social responsibility and conscientiousness. DNA sets the tone for more than physical appearance.