Genetic Similarity, Ethnocentrism, and Political Attitudes.

The preponderance of research on the study of ethnocentrism has primarily attributed such attitudes to learned behavior. The research here advances the argument that both socialization and genetic inheritance contribute to the development of ethnocentric attitudes and behavior. This analysis employs the Minnesota Twins Political survey data consisting of 596 complete twin pairs. Using the classical twin design we employed structural equation modeling to model the covariance of twins in regards to additive genetic effects, shared-environment effects, and unique-environment effects (i.e., the classic ACE model). The findings reveal that genetic inheritance is significant in explaining the variance in genetic attitudes. Specifically, genetic inheritance explains 18% of the variance, with the overwhelming 82% being explained by the unique environment. The validity of these findings is further tested using DeFries-Fulker models, which allows us to control for authoritarianism, conservatism and education. The results reveal that genetic inheritance possesses the largest magnitude, when compared to other explanatory variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]