Are you kind or rather unfriendly? Do you act like a "good Samaritan" or do you indulge in selfish impulses ? Part of the answer may be in your genes, according to a new study from the University of Edinburgh published in the journal Biology Letters of the Royal Society.
The researchers, led by psychologist Gary Lewis, worked with a sample of almost 1,000 sets of twins, of which just under half were identical (they shared all their genes). To measure their tendency to show prosocial behaviors, they were asked to rate on a scale of one to ten if they would be willing to voluntarily testify as witnesses to a traffic accident, to work longer hours than normal in the office, or to pay more taxes so that everyone citizens had access to health care. In this way they found that the identical twins were much more similar in their answers than the rest .
In addition, according to the results, those who exhibited the most "impulses of generosity" were identical twin sisters , especially in civic and work-related obligations. Specifically, Lewis and his colleagues have calculated that in women the prosocial personality would depend 48% on genetic factors . The authors also observed that men's behavior was more influenced by family environment, and only 20% depended on genetics.
