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A new study based on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) suggests that genetics may play a role in shaping adults’ political leanings.  The research, which appeared in the latest edition of The Journal of Politics, focused on a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4.  The DRD4 gene has previously been shown to influence people’s novelty-seeking behavior, but this is the first time it has be linked to the development of political views.

The study’s lead researcher, James H. Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, matched genetic information on 2,000 Add Health participants with “maps” of their social networks.  He found that those with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults – though only if they had an active adolescent social life.  The finding held true regardless of the participant’s ethnicity, culture, sex, or age.

The key to it all, the study suggests, is that liberals are more open.  Talking with FoxNews, Fowler hypothesized that “people with the novelty-seeking [DRD4] gene variant would be more interested in learning about their friends’ points of view.  As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition who have a greater-than-average number of friends would be exposed to a wider variety of social norms and lifestyles, which might make them more liberal than average” (October 28, 2010. Researchers Find the ‘Liberal Gene’.  Published on FoxNews.com).

“These finding suggest that political affiliation is not based solely on the kind of social environment people experience,” the authors concluded in the report.  “It is our hope is that more scholars will begin to explore the potential interaction of biology and environment.”

To read the entire FoxNews article, click here.

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This article is based on research published as the following:

Settle, Jamie E.; Dawes, Christopher T.; Christakis, Nicholas A.; and James H. Fowler. 2010. Friendships Moderate an Association between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology. The Journal of Politics, 72: 1189-1198. Cambridge University Press.  DOI: 10.1017/S0022381610000617.

US News & World Report published an article from ScienceNews which discusses the presentation of research by CPC Fellows Guang Guo and Kathleen Mullan Harris at a recent meeting of the American Sociological Association. The findings suggest teenage boys with two copies of a particular gene variant are less likely to engage in risky behaviors than their counterparts who carry at least one copy of a different version of the gene. The findings show that once the behavior becomes socially acceptable or legal the likelihood to engage becomes more even between the two groups. The results are especially significant in that they show the possibility of a level of genetic protection from unsafe social behaviors.

Guo is Professor of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Harris is James Haar Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill and Interim Director of CPC. Matt Bradshaw, CPC Postdoctoral Scholar, also commented on the study in the story.

The study was published in PLoS ONE in February 2010.

The full article can be read here. It originally appeared here.

News source:

Bower, Bruce. “Sociologists looking at risky behavior plunge into the gene pool” ScienceNews (August 15, 2010)

Bower, Bruce. “Sociologists looking at risky behavior plunge into the gene pool” US News & World Report (August 16, 2010)

Study source:

Guo, Guang, Cai, Tianji, Guo, Rui, Wang, Hongyu, Harris, Kathleen Mullan. (2010) The Dopamine Transporter Gene, a Spectrum of Most Common Risky Behaviors, and the Legal Status of the Behaviors. PLoS ONE 5(2): e9352. February 2010.

On July 22-23, 2010, the ninth Add Health Users Conference took place in Bethesda, Maryland on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Over 100 researchers who are working with Add Health data assembled to share research goals, experiences and results.  The conference agenda included over 50 presentations by investigators who are using Add Health data to conduct research in substantive areas spanning the social, behavioral and biological sciences.  In addition, methodology sessions provided in-depth information on the Add Health study design and the unique biomarker, genetic, geographic and relationship data that enhance this rich data set.  Conference materials and methodology presentations are available at the links below.

2010 Add Health Users Conference Materials

Program

Abstracts

Participants and Research Information

2010 Add Health Users Conference Methodology Session Presentations

Overview of Add Health Study and Design

by Kathleen Mullan Harris

Access to Add Health Data at ICPSR

by Felicia LeClere
Biomarkers – Part 1
Biomarkers – Part 2
Biomarkers – Part 3

by Eric Whitsel

Relationship and Fertility Data: Wave IV

by Mariah Mantsun Cheng

ONEdata: Obesity & Neighborhood Environmental Data

by Misa Graff

Using Genetic Data in the Add Health Sample – Part A

Using Genetic Data in the Add Health Sample – Part B

by Andy Smolen

Add health Wave IV Non-response: Patterns of Wave-Specific Rates and Non-response Biases for the Full Weighted Sample

by Naomi Brownstein

Investigation of Ways of Handling Sampling Weights for Multilevel Model Analyses Using Add Health

by Tianji Cai

On Monday, July 12, 2010, Dr. Kathleen Mullan Harris, Director and Principal Investigator of the Add Health study, will speak at a Congressional Briefing titled “Recession and Recovery: How are Americans Affected?” in Washington, D.C.  The briefing is being sponsored by the Population Association of America (PAA).  Using data from Wave IV of the Add Health study, Dr. Harris will discuss how the economic downturn has particularly affected young adults.  Other panelists will speak about the effects of the recession on children and older Americans.

For more information about the briefing, please view the attached flier.

For more information about the Add Health study, please visit our homepage.

Dr. Kathleen Mullan Harris, Director and Principal Investigator of the Add Health study, presented novel findings based on Add Health genetics data at the “Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences” conference in Boulder, Colorado on June 2-3, 2010.

Dr. Harris’ paper titled “The Dopamine Transporter Gene, a Spectrum of Most Common Risky Behaviors, and the Legal Status of the Behaviors” was featured in the opening session of the meeting.  The paper examines the protective effect of the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) across a spectrum of common risky behaviors including delinquency, sexual activity, smoking, and substance use.

To view Dr. Harris’ PowerPoint presentation, please click here.

To view the scholarly paper on which the presentation was based, please click here.

For more information about the meeting, please visit the Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences conference website.

We are pleased to announce that on-line registration for the ninth Add Health Users Conference is now open!

The conference will take place on July 22-23, 2010 on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.  The conference is being co-sponsored by the Office of Behavior and Social Sciences Research, NIH; the Office of Research on Women’s Health, NIH; the Add Health Study at the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH.

Registration for the conference is free of charge and is open to all researchers interested in learning more about the Add Health study and its data.  To access the on-line registration form or for more information about the conference, please visit the 2010 Add Health Users Conference homepage.

Please be advised that on-line conference registration will close on Monday, June 28.  After this date, researchers who wish to attend the conference will need to register on-site the first day of the conference.  On-site registration will begin at 8:00 am on Thursday, July 22 at the Natcher Building and Conference Center on the NIH campus.

We hope to see you this summer!

A new study examining the impact of mentoring on teens’ educational attainment was published in Sociology of Education and featured in ScienceDaily.  The study was conducted by Lance Erickson of Brigham Young University, Steve McDonald of North Carolina State University, and Glen H. Elder, Jr. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Data from Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent showed that having a teacher as a mentor was particularly powerful at promoting achievement among disadvantages youth.

“In the statistical analysis, mentors proved pivotal in whether students make the jump to college. For example, students whose parents do not even have a high school degree are normally 35 percent likely to enroll in college.  According to the study, the rate jumps to 66 percent when the youth considers one of his teachers to be a personal mentor.”

Erickson noted that the “mentors weren’t necessarily doing anything extraordinary, just being involved and treating the young person as an important human being.” (November 5, 2009. Benefit of a Mentor: Disadvantaged Teens Twice As Likely To Attend College.  In ScienceDaily.)

To read the entire article, click here

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.

This article is based on research published as the following:

Erickson, Lance D.; McDonald, Steve; Elder Jr., Glen H. (2009). Informal Mentors and Education: Complementary or Compensatory Resources? Sociology of Education, 82(4):344-367(24).

Add Health is pleased to announce the release of the Wave IV in-home interview data. Wave IV was designed as the fourth comprehensive personal interview with the nationally-representative sample of adolescents first interviewed at Wave I in 1994 and 1995. Over 80% of original Wave I respondents participated in Wave IV data collection during 2007-2009, resulting in 15,701 completed Wave IV interviews. Add Health is now accepting requests for the Wave IV interview data from Add Health users with current restricted-use data contracts. Prospective contractual data users will be able to request the Wave IV data through an online contracting system beginning in January 2010.  For more information on how to access Add Health restricted-use data, see About Restricted-Use Contractual Data.  For more information on the Wave IV study design, visit the Add Health Wave IV design page.

In January 2010, responsibility for the dissemination of Add Health restricted-use contractual data will shift from Add Health at the Carolina Population Center to the Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR) project at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). To facilitate this transition, no new restricted-use data agreements are being accepted at the present time. Initiation of new contracts will resume in January 2010 when ICPSR launches an online Add Health restricted-use data contracting and dissemination system, which will ultimately allow certified researchers to gain access to the restricted-use data more quickly and efficiently.

Add Health restricted-use data agreements that are currently in place between data users’ institutions and the University of North Carolina will remain in effect until their current end-dates. However, in assuming dissemination of Add Health restricted-use data, ICPSR will also assume responsibility for overseeing all current Add Health data use agreements.  Current contractual users who seek to renew an existing contract, add new researchers, or make changes to an approved data security plan should continue to contact Add Health as usual until December 15, 2009. After this date, changes to current contracts will be administered by ICPSR. ICPSR will be contacting Add Health contractual data users with more information on the continued administration of their agreements. 

Throughout this transition period, the Add Health website will be updated regularly to include the latest information on how to access the restricted-use data. For more information on the forthcoming online contracting system, you may also email ICPSR.

The September 10th edition of the New York Times magazine featured an in-depth article on social contagion effects in health and happiness.  The article examined evidence from several studies – including Add Health – regarding the theory that health behaviors can pass from friend to friend like contagious “viruses.”

At the heart of the discussion is recent research conducted by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler.  The pair analyzed social connections between participants in the Framingham Heart Study and found that several behaviors and conditions – including smoking, drinking, obesity, and happiness – appeared to spread from person to person.  For example, “When a Framingham resident became obese, his or her friends were 57 percent more likely to become obese, too.  Even more astonishing…was the fact that the effect did not stop there.  In fact, it appeared to skip links.”

When Christakis and Fowler repeated their analyses using Add Health data, they found the same three-degree pattern of contagion for obesity.  However, research by other Add Health investigators has called into question whether confounding effects such as homophily – the tendency of people to gravitate toward others who are like them – or shared environment are at play.

Regardless of how one judges the evidence, Christakis and Fowler’s work may suggest “a new way to think about public health.  If they’re right, public-health initiatives that merely address the affected individuals are doomed to failure.” (September 10, 2009. Are Your Friends Making You Fat? In New York Times magazine.)

To read the entire New York Times magazine article, click here

This article is based on research published as the following:

Christakis, Nicholas A. and James H. Fowler. 2007. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years.  New England Journal of Medicine 26, 357(4): 370-9. 

Cohen-Cole, and Jason M. Fletcher. 2008. Detecting implausible social network effects in acne, height, and headaches: longitudinal analysis.  BMJ 337:a2533.

Fowler, James H. and Nicholas A. Christakis.  2008. Estimating peer effects on health in social networks: a response to Cohen-Cole and Fletcher; and Trogdon, Nonnemaker, and Pais. Journal of Health Economics 27(5): 1400-5. 

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.