Until a few years ago, upbringing, experience and culture were considered the primary factors influencing our political preferences. According to such thinking, if Sarah Palin were raised by liberals in a big city and Nancy Pelosi had grown up hunting moose in Alaska, they'd be giving each others' speeches.
But that thinking is changing. This most recent study, published in the October issue of the Journal of Politics, revealed a complicated connection among political preferences, a gene called DRD4, and even the number of friends that people said they had in high school.
The DRD4 gene influences the brain chemical dopamine, which is involved in movement, emotion, pleasure, and pain.
About 38 percent of us carry an alternative version of the gene which has been associated with a novelty-seeking trait. Five percent of us carry two copies of the novelty-seeking version.
"A novelty-seeking individual would be more likely to try a new kind of food or climb Mount Everest," said James Fowler, a professor of political science and medical genetics at the University of California San Diego. That's what made him think it might have some connection to politics.
Fowler, who is lead author on this latest study, said the findings have already been misinterpreted, thanks to the polarized political climate we live in. "The conservative blogosphere has really picked up the story as a finding of a gene for some disease - a gene for liberalism," he said.
But the way he sees it, these variants in our DRD4 genes have been around for tens of thousands of years. If one form were superior, the other would have been weeded out by natural selection.
Fowler's study builds on an earlier one published in 2005, showing the first concrete connection between genes and political attitudes.
