The Molecule of More

THE MOLECULE OF MORE

you grew up in, and whether you were encouraged to be

creative at a young age, to name a few. Having one specific

gene usually has only a small effect. So while these studies

advance our understanding of how the brain works, they’re

not very good at predicting how a particular individual—one

member of that large group—will behave. In other words,

some observations about a group you belong to may not be

true about you in particular. That’s to be expected.

RECEPTOR GENES AND THE LIBERAL–

CONSERVATIVE SPLIT

There’s a  good chance that the  difficulty the  conservatives faced 
stemmed from differences in  their DNA. In  fact, political attitudes in 
general seem to  be  influenced by  genetics. In  addition to  the American
Journal of Political Science article just discussed, other studies support a
link between a genetic disposition to a dopaminergic personality and
a liberal ideology. Researchers from the University of California, San
Diego focused on a gene that codes for one of the dopamine receptors
called D4. Like most genes, the D4 gene has a number of variants.
Slight variations in genes are called alleles. Each person’s collection of
different alleles (along with the  environment they grew up  in)  helps 
determine their unique personality.
One of the variants of the D4 gene is called 7R. People who have
the 7R variant tend to be novelty-seeking. They have less tolerance for
monotony and pursue whatever is new or unusual. They can be impul-
sive,  exploratory, fickle, excitable, quick-tempered, and  extravagant. On 
the other hand, people with low novelty-seeking personalities are more
likely to be reflective, rigid, loyal, stoic, slow-tempered, and frugal.
The researchers found a connection between the 7R allele and
adherence to liberal ideology, but only if a person grew up around peo-
ple with a variety of political opinions. There had to be both a genetic