1
|
Pelt DHM, de Vries LP, Bartels M. Unraveling the Relation Between Personality and Well-Being in a Genetically Informative Design. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY 2022. [DOI: 10.1177/08902070221134878] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
In the current study, common and unique genetic and environmental influences on personality and a broad range of well-being measures were investigated. Data on the Big Five, life satisfaction, quality of life, self-rated health, loneliness, and depression from 14,253 twins and their siblings (age M: 31.82, SD: 14.41, range 16–97) from the Netherlands Twin Register were used in multivariate extended twin models. The best-fitting theoretical model indicated that genetic variance in personality and well-being traits can be decomposed into effects due to one general, common factor ( Mdn: 60%, range 15%–89%), due to personality-specific ( Mdn: 2%, range 0%–78%) and well-being-specific ( Mdn: 12%, range 4%–35%) factors, and trait-specific effects ( Mdn: 18%, range 0%–65%). Significant amounts of non-additive genetic influences on the traits’ (co)variances were found, while no evidence was found for quantitative or qualitative sex differences. Taken together, our study paints a fine-grained, complex picture of common and unique genetic and environmental effects on personality and well-being. Implications for the interpretation of shared variance, inflated phenotypic correlations between traits and future gene finding studies are discussed.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Dirk H. M. Pelt
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Lianne P. de Vries
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Meike Bartels
- Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| |
Collapse
|