Genes, evolution, and personality

There is abundant evidence, some of it reviewed in this paper, that persona lity traits are substantially influenced by the genes. Much remains to be u nderstood about how and why this is the case. We argue that placing the beh avior genetics of personality in the context of epidemiology, evolutionary psychology, and neighboring psychological domains such as interests and att itudes should help lead to new insights. We suggest that important methodol ogical advances, such as measuring traits from multiple viewpoints, using l arge samples, and analyzing data by modern multivariate techniques, have al ready led to major changes in our view of such perennial puzzles as the rol e of "unshared environment" in personality. In the long run, but not yet, a pproaches via molecular genetics and brain physiology may also make decisiv e contributions to understanding the heritability of personality traits. We conclude that the behavior genetics of personality is alive and flourishin g but that there remains ample scope for new growth and that much social sc ience research is seriously compromised if it does not incorporate genetic variation in its explanatory models.