RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Educational attainment and personality are genetically intertwined
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 078014
DO 10.1101/078014
A1 René Mõttus
A1 Anu Realo
A1 Uku Vainik
A1 Jüri Allik
A1 Tõnu Esko
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/13/078014.abstract
AB It is possible that ubiquitous heritable variance in personality characteristics does not reflect (only) genetic and biological processes specific to personality per se. We tested the possibility that Five-Factor Model personality domains, facets and items, as rated by people themselves and their knowledgeable informants, reflect polygenic influences that have been previously associated with educational attainment. In a sample of over 3,000 adult Estonians, polygenic scores for educational attainment, based on small contributions from more than 150,000 genetic variants, were correlated with various personality traits, particularly from the Neuroticism and Openness domains. The correlations of personality traits with phenotypic educational attainment closely mirrored their correlations with educational attainment-related polygenic influences, across facets and individual items. Structural equation modeling of the associations between polygenic risk, personality and educational attainment lent strongest support to the possibility that the same additive genetic influences act independently on both educational attainment and related personality traits.