NATURE, NURTURE, AND CONSERVATISM IN THE AUSTRALIAN TWIN STUDY

Church attendance, educational level, and six conservatism scales were the subject of a multivariate behavior-genetic analysis by Truett et al. (Behav. Genet. 229 43-62, 1992), based on responses from a large s ample of adult Australian twins. These data are here analyzed in a dif ferent way to elicit general conservatism factors in the genetic, shar ed environmental, and unshared environmental covariation. The general genetic factor appears mainly to reflect intellectual sophistication; the general environmental factors, religious affiliation. These factor s are similar, although not identical, for men and women.