Taking your genes to vote

Next weekend it’s council election time in NSW. We all trundle down to the local school, buy a sausage sandwich for lunch, a cake from the mad lady on the cake stall and then vote, in order, for our preferred representatives.

I am sure everyone will have studied the policies, aims and objectives of all the candidates before fixing on the person or party that best aligns with their own ideology. Genetics will not feature highly in most people’s decision-making processes - or will it?

An ever-increasing body of research is indicating that your genes are quite highly implicated in your political behaviour. However, before you give up any intention of making informed decisions, you must be aware that having a particular gene does not guarantee that the gene will be expressed. Equally, there is no single gene that determines that you will always vote Liberal, Labor or Green, or even, for that matter, donkey vote. Future research, including gene expression and sequencing studies, may lead to deeper insights into genetic influences on political views and have a greater impact on public policy.

Twin studies show that genes have some influence on why people differ on political issues such as the death penalty, unemployment and abortion. Because this field of research is relatively new, only a handful of genes have been implicated in political ideology and partisanship, voter turnout and political violence.

Psychological traits like empathy and aggression already have identified biomarkers, as have hormone levels and physiological reactions to stimuli. Many of these can be used to categorise Costa and McCrea’s ‘Big Five’ framework of personality traits that have been used to understand the relationship between personality and various academic behaviours.

• Openness (inventive/curious v consistent/cautious)
• Conscientiousness (efficient/organised v easygoing/careless)
• Extraversion (outgoing/energetic v solitary/reserved)
• Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate v cold/unkind)
• Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous v secure/confident)

Mix it all up and you have a pretty interesting area for research and great dinner party conversation.

According to Peter Hatemi of the University of Sydney, “We’re seeing an awakening in the social sciences, and the wall that divided politics and genetics is really starting to fall apart. This is a big advance, because the two fields could inform each other to answer some very complex questions about individual differences in political views.”

The 27 August online journal Trends in Genetics includes a review of Hatemi’s work on how genes can influence political behaviour.