title: Association between the dopamine D4 receptor gene exon III variable number of tandem repeats and political attitudes in female Han Chinese.
abstract: Twin and family studies suggest that political attitudes are partially determined by an individual's genotype. The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) exon III repeat region that has been extensively studied in connection with human behaviour, is a plausible candidate to contribute to individual differences in political attitudes. A first United States study provisionally identified this gene with political attitude along a liberal-conservative axis albeit contingent upon number of friends. In a large sample of 1771 Han Chinese university students in Singapore, we observed a significant main effect of association between the DRD4 exon III variable number of tandem repeats and political attitude. Subjects with two copies of the 4-repeat allele (4R/4R) were significantly more conservative. Our results provided evidence for a role of the DRD4 gene variants in contributing to individual differences in political attitude particularly in females and more generally suggested that associations between individual genes, and neurochemical pathways, contributing to traits relevant to the social sciences can be provisionally identified.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, AS4, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore rpebstein@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Richard P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Ebstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, AS4, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore.
authors.forename: Mikhail V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Monakhov
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, AS2, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore.
authors.forename: Yunfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, AS2, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore.
authors.forename: Yushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, National University of Singapore, 1E Kent Ridge Road, 119228, Singapore.
authors.forename: Poh San
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, AS2, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore.
authors.forename: Soo Hong
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Chew
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D011057:Politics; D050638:Receptors, Dopamine D4 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D012737:Sex Factors; D012846:Singapore; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: C493599:DRD4 protein, human; D050638:Receptors, Dopamine D4
keywords: DRD4; candidate gene; dopamine; political ideology; social attitudes