Games, Genes, and Politics J. Fowler

Games,

Genes,

and PoliticsJames H. Fowler

UC San Diego

Ideology

and Utopia

• Total Social Context and the

„Sociology of Knowledge‟

- “there is a correspondence

between a given social

situation and a given

perspective [or] point of view….”

(Mannheim 1936, 51)

• Highly Influential in Literature on Ideology- Huntington 1957; Bell 1959; Rapoport 1974; North 1978;

Lipset 1983; Jackman and Muha 1984; Haas 1992

Big Picture

BehaviorsParticipation

Partisanship

IdeologyE

Big Picture

GenesDopamine

Serotonin

Tendencies Prosociality

Anxiety

Big Picture

GenesDopamine

Serotonin


Partisanship

Ideology

Big Picture


Partisanship

Ideology


Anxiety

Indirect

Big Picture

GenesDopamine

Serotonin


Partisanship

Ideology


Anxiety

Direct

Indirect

Big Picture

GenesDopamine

Serotonin


Partisanship

Ideology


Anxiety

E

Tim Johnson, Christopher T. Dawes, James H.

Fowler, Richard McElreath, Oleg Smirnov

The Role of Egalitarian

Motives in Altruistic

Punishment

The Behavioral Logic of Collective Action:

Partisans Cooperate and Punish More Than

Non-Partisans, PP R&ROleg Smirnov, Christopher T. Dawes, James H. Fowler, Tim Johnson, Richard

McElreath,

When It‟s Not All About Me: Altruism,

Participation, & Political Context, JOP

R&RCindy D. Kam, Skyler J. Cranmer, James H.

Fowler

ObservedTheoretical

Twin Studies

• Compare the behavior of

- monozygotic (MZ) twins (identical)

• share 100% of their genes

- dizygotic (DZ) twins (fraternal)

• share 50% of their

genes on average

• Decompose variance

- A - genetic

- C - common environment

- E - unshared environment

Criticism of Twin Studies• MZ and DZ environments

may not be comparable- MZ twins may be more strongly

affiliated than DZ twins

• However- Studies of twins reared apart

validated by other methodsBouchard 1998; Visscher et al 2006

- Differences between MZ and DZ twins persist even among twins whose zygosity has been miscategorized by their parentsXian et al. 2000; Kendler et al. 1993; Scarr and Carter-Saltzman 1979; Scarr 1968

- MZ twins are sometimes in more frequent contact, but this results from rather than causes greater similartyPosner et al 1996

- MZ twins living apart become more similar with age Bouchard and McGue 2003

Los Angeles Voter Turnout

• Posterior mean

- A 53%

(10%,89%)

- C 35%

(2%,73%)

- E 12% (3%,

26%)

• Better model fit

when we drop

C

Add Health Voter Turnout

• Posterior mean

- A 72%

(32%,93%)

- C 20%

(1%,57%)

- E 9% (5%, 15%)


when we drop

C

Add Health Political

Participation

• Posterior mean

- A 60%

(11%,91%)

- C 18%

(0%,54%)

- E 23% (4%,

59%)


when we drop

C

Two More Replications

• Minnesota Twin

Family Study

- 2764 young voters

- Validated turnout

- A = 47% (13%, 60%)

• Twins Days Festival

- 800 representative adults

- Self-reported turnout

- A ~ 40%

Heritability of Partisan

AttachmentJaime Settle, Christopher T. Dawes, James H. Fowler

• Humans Built for

Social Networks

- Social Brain

Hypothesis

- Many network

measures are

heritable

• Networks Influence

Political Behavior

- Voters

- Activists

- Politicians

Partisanship, Voting, & the

Dopamine D2 Receptor GeneChristopher T. Dawes, James H. Fowler

Friendships Moderate an Association

Between a Dopamine Gene Variant

and Political IdeologyJaime E. Settle, Christopher T. Dawes, Peter K. Hatemi, Nicholas A. Christakis, James H.

Fowler

Red Brain, Blue BrainEvaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and

Republicans

Darren Schreiber, Alan N. Simmons, Christopher T. Dawes, Taru Flagan, James H. Fowler,

Martin P. Paulus

Reinterpreting

Habitual / Stable Behavior • Turnout is habitual -- people typically either

always vote or always abstain• Fowler 2006b; Gerber, Green, and Shachar 2003; Green and

Shachar 2000; Miller and Shanks 1996; Plutzer 2004; Verba

and Nie 1972

- Previously interpreted as reinforcement learning

• Partisan attachments are stable• Converse 1969; Miller & Shanks 1996

- Previously interpreted as reinforced

behavior/loyalty

• Brader and Tucker 2001

• Genetic component = inherent variability

- Due in part to specific genes

Reinterpreting

Parent-Child Correlations • Parental turnout strong predictor for turnout

in young adults• Plutzer 2002

• Partisan attachments strongly correlated

between parent and child• Campbell 1960, Niemi & Jennings 1991

• Previously interpreted as

transmission of norms

• Could be due instead to

transmission of genes

Reinterpreting Ideology

• Total social contextinfluences ideology- But moderated by genetic variants!

• Genetic association suggests ideology may have a stable coreJost et al. 2003

- But subject to environmental interactions

• The world is not just E. It is G x E!

Parting Thoughts

• Association studies require replication

- Study of schizophrenia yielded several dead-ends

- Nature and Science now require replication for

publication

• Increasingly difficult to argue against

heritability of political behavior

• Experimental work is needed to

understand the causal mechanisms that

link genes to political behavior

• Genes are the institutions of the human

body

Acknowledgements

Come see us at http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu

Chris Dawes

Jaime

Settle Peter Hatemi

Nicholas

Christakis

http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu

Games, Genes, and Politics J. Fowler

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