{"id":671145,"date":"2026-09-03T22:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T22:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/671145\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T22:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T22:16:13","slug":"scientists-map-genetics-of-personality-across-million-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/671145\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Map Genetics of Personality across Million People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers have identified more than 1,200 locations in the human genome associated with personality traits, offering the most detailed look yet at the biological underpinnings of traits like sociability, anxiety and curiosity, while also underscoring how much of personality remains shaped by life experience rather than genes. The results<\/a> appear this week in the journal Nature.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Schwaba<\/p>\n

Schwaba et al. find that the genetic architecture of personality is robustly generalizable, minimally confounded and widely relevant to human experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman personality traits can be divided into five categories, known as the Big Five: extraversion (including traits such as sociability, assertiveness and energy level), agreeableness (compassion, respectfulness and trust), conscientiousness (organization, productiveness and responsibility), neuroticism (anxiety, depression and volatility) and openness to experience (imagination, curiosity and aesthetic sensitivity),\u201d said Michigan State University\u2019s Dr. Ted Schwaba and colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cVarious pieces of research over the past 100 years have demonstrated that genetic and environmental factors contribute to variation in personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, attempts to identify genetic signatures associated with personality traits are challenging as multiple genes may be involved and very large participant numbers are needed to make meaningful associations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors analyzed data from 46 cohorts comprising up to 1.14\u2009million participants of European and African ancestry.<\/p>\n

They pinpointed 1,260 lead genetic variants tied to the five traits, a many-fold increase over prior studies, with roughly two-thirds representing newly discovered associations.<\/p>\n

Despite this expansion, common genetic variants explained only a modest slice of personality differences between people \u2014 between about 5 and 9% of variation for a typical trait measure, rising to around 13% when accounting for measurement imprecision.<\/p>\n

This is far below the 40 to 60% heritability estimates that have emerged from twin and family studies, a gap the authors attribute largely to the difficulty of capturing rare genetic variants and complex gene interactions through this method.<\/p>\n

One of the study\u2019s main conclusions is that genetic signals tied to personality look remarkably similar regardless of where in the Western world someone lives, how old they are, or whether their personality was rated by themselves or by someone who knows them well.<\/p>\n

The main exception was agreeableness, whose genetic associations varied more across populations and measurement approaches than the other traits.<\/p>\n

The scientists also linked personality-related genetic profiles to a wide range of life outcomes, including physical and mental health, substance use, career paths, and even where people choose to live as they age.<\/p>\n

Using a technique called Mendelian randomization, they found evidence that personality traits may causally influence outcomes such as body weight, smoking behavior and COVID-19 infection risk, and that life circumstances, such as educational attainment, may in turn shape personality over time.<\/p>\n

The authors also emphasized that individual genetic effects on personality are exceedingly small and diffuse, spread across many thousands of variants, and cannot be used to predict any single person\u2019s character or behavior.<\/p>\n

They noted that all of the methods used in the study continue to point to environment as a major force shaping who people become.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings highlight the widespread influence of personality across many areas of life,\u201d Dr. Schwaba said.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201dPersonality seems to be relevant nearly everywhere you look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope this study will encourage many other scientists to incorporate personality traits into their fields of study.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings provide a new understanding of how biology and environment work together to shape personality,\u201d said Dr. Michelle Lupton, a researcher at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis very large scale study shows us that our genetic makeup plays a key role, up to 16% of the variation in personality can be explained by common genetic variation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe remaining is due to our environment, which includes our life circumstances and experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

T. Schwaba et al. Robust inference and correlates from genetic associations with personality. Nature, published online September 2, 2026; doi: 10.1038\/s41586-026-10992-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have identified more than 1,200 locations in the human genome associated with personality traits, offering the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[3286,18,3288,3289,3292,3293,19,17,6065,133],"class_list":["post-671145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-dna","tag-eire","tag-gene","tag-genome","tag-homo-sapiens","tag-human","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personality","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117209425574931277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}