Inherited Dreams: A Twin Study of Future Orientation and Heritability among Chinese Adolescents

Future orientation tends to prevent engagement in risk behaviours and results in good academic performance among adolescents. Our study aimed to establish whether genetic factors contributed to future orientation among Chinese adolescents. We recruited 988 pairs of twins from Beijing. By constructing a high-order A (additive genetic variance) C (common environmental variance) E (unique environmental variance) model, we found that heritability and a common environment contributed significantly to the development of future orientation among adolescents. Moreover, this study did not detect significant heritability differences in future orientation between girls and boys. In addition, there was a negative relationship between age and heritability of future orientation but a positive relationship between age and non-shared environmental effect on the development of future orientation. Our findings provide empirical evidence for the heritability of future orientation, suggesting that both genetics and common environment influence its development.