TY - JOUR
T1 - Molecular genetics and subjective well-being
AU - Rietveld, Cornelius A.
AU - Cesarini, David
AU - Benjamin, Daniel J.
AU - Koellinger, Philipp D.
AU - De Neve, Jan Emmanuel
AU - Tiemeier, Henning
AU - Johannesson, Magnus
AU - Magnusson, Patrik K.E.
AU - Pedersen, Nancy L.
AU - Krueger, Robert F.
AU - Bartels, Meike
PY - 2013/6/11
Y1 - 2013/6/11
N2 - Subjective well-being (SWB) is a major topic of research across the social sciences. Twin and family studies have found that genetic factors may account for as much as 30-40% of the variance in SWB. Here, we study genetic contributions to SWB in a pooled sample of ≈11,500 unrelated, comprehensively-genotyped Swedish and Dutch individuals. We apply a recently developed method to estimate "common narrow heritability": the fraction of variance in SWB that can be explained by the cumulative additive effects of genetic polymorphisms that are common in the population. Our estimates are 5-10% for single-question survey measures of SWB, and 12-18% after correction for measurement error in the SWB measures. Our results suggest guarded optimism about the prospects of using genetic data in SWB research because, although the common narrow heritability is not large, the polymorphisms that contribute to it could feasibly be discovered with a sufficiently large sample of individuals.
AB - Subjective well-being (SWB) is a major topic of research across the social sciences. Twin and family studies have found that genetic factors may account for as much as 30-40% of the variance in SWB. Here, we study genetic contributions to SWB in a pooled sample of ≈11,500 unrelated, comprehensively-genotyped Swedish and Dutch individuals. We apply a recently developed method to estimate "common narrow heritability": the fraction of variance in SWB that can be explained by the cumulative additive effects of genetic polymorphisms that are common in the population. Our estimates are 5-10% for single-question survey measures of SWB, and 12-18% after correction for measurement error in the SWB measures. Our results suggest guarded optimism about the prospects of using genetic data in SWB research because, although the common narrow heritability is not large, the polymorphisms that contribute to it could feasibly be discovered with a sufficiently large sample of individuals.
KW - GCTA
KW - GREML
KW - Happiness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84878993284&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84878993284&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1222171110
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1222171110
M3 - Article
C2 - 23708117
AN - SCOPUS:84878993284
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 110
SP - 9692
EP - 9697
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 24
ER -