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Genes, Ideology, and Sophistication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2021

Nathan P. Kalmoe Open the ORCID record for Nathan P. Kalmoe [Opens in a new window]  and
Martin Johnson
Nathan P. Kalmoe*
Affiliation:
Manship School of Mass Communication and Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
Martin Johnson
Affiliation:
Manship School of Mass Communication and Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: nkalmoe@lsu.edu
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Abstract

Twin studies function as natural experiments that reveal political ideology’s substantial genetic roots, but how does that comport with research showing a largely nonideological public? This study integrates two important literatures and tests whether political sophistication – itself heritable – provides an “enriched environment” for genetic predispositions to actualize in political attitudes. Estimates from the Minnesota Twin Study show that sociopolitical conservatism is extraordinarily heritable (74%) for the most informed fifth of the public – much more so than population-level results (57%) – but with much lower heritability (29%) for the public’s bottom half. This heterogeneity is clearest in the Wilson–Patterson (W-P) index, with similar patterns for individual index items, an ideological constraint measure, and ideological identification. The results resolve tensions between two key fields by showing that political knowledge facilitates the expression of genetic predispositions in mass politics.

Keywords

Twin studiesheritabilityideologyknowledgenatural experiment
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , Summer 2022 , pp. 255 - 266
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

The data employed in this project were collected with the financial support of the National Science Foundation in the form of SES-0721378, PI: John R. Hibbing; Co-PIs: John R. Alford, Lindon J. Eaves, Carolyn L. Funk, Peter K. Hatemi, and Kevin B. Smith, and with the cooperation of the Minnesota Twin Registry at the University of Minnesota, Robert Krueger and Matthew McGue, Directors. The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NBIWOA. Due to Martin Johnson’s passing during revisions, we are unable to post the replication files for the main OpenMX analysis, which we could not find among his files. There are no conflicts of interest to report.

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