title: The Role of Nature and Nurture for Individual Differences in Primary Emotional Systems: Evidence from a Twin Study.
abstract: The present study investigated for the first time the relative importance of genetics and environment on individual differences in primary emotionality as measured with the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) by means of a twin-sibling study design. In N = 795 participants (n = 303 monozygotic twins, n = 172 dizygotic twins and n = 267 non-twin full siblings), moderate to strong influences of genetics on individual differences in these emotional systems are observed. Lowest heritability estimates are presented for the SEEKING system (33%) and highest for the PLAY system (69%). Further, multivariate genetic modeling was applied to the data showing that associations among the six ANPS scales were influences by both, a genetic as well as an environmental overlap between them. In sum, the study underlines the usefulness of the ANPS for biologically oriented personality psychology research.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Montag
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken, Germany.
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.|Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reuter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Spinath
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina 28223, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.affiliation: College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, Washington 99164, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jaak
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Panksepp
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003710:Demography; D004644:Emotions; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010551:Personality; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010641:Phenotype; D035781:Siblings; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics*