Genetic and environmental correlations between the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and working memory

The present study examines the association between the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and working memory and its etiology with a behavioral genetic approach. The GFP, which explains the common variance among lower-order personality traits, is considered to reflect social effectiveness. Meanwhile, working memory also plays a significant role in social competence. Hence, we expected a substantial association between the GFP and working memory. A total of 253 Japanese twin pairs (124 monozygotic female; 52 monozygotic male; 28 dizygotic female; 17 dizygotic male; and 32 opposite sex twins) were included in the analyses. Phenotypic analyses confirmed a significant positive correlation between the GFP and working memory. Biometric analysis with a bivariate Cholesky decomposition model showed that the phenotypic correlation derived from additive genetic and non-shared environmental correlations. The present findings are in line with social effectiveness account of the GFP.