The social genome of friends and schoolmates in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health

Humans tend to form social relationships with others who resemble them. Whether this sorting of like with like arises from historical patterns of migration, meso-level social structures in modern society, or individual-level selection of similar peers remains unsettled. Recent research has evaluated...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2018-01, Vol.115 (4), p.702-707
Main Authors: Domingue, Benjamin W., Belsky, Daniel W., Fletcher, Jason M., Conley, Dalton, Boardman, Jason D., Harris, Kathleen Mullan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior - psychology
Adolescents
Adult
Correlation analysis
Educational attainment
Female
Friends - psychology
Genetic effects
Genetics
Genome-Wide Association Study - methods
Genomes
Genotype
Genotype & phenotype
Genotypes
Health
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Migration
Peer Group
Peers
Polygenic inheritance
Schools
Social Behavior
Social Environment
Social Sciences
Social structure
Social Support
Society
Sociobiology - methods
United States
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Humans tend to form social relationships with others who resemble them. Whether this sorting of like with like arises from historical patterns of migration, meso-level social structures in modern society, or individual-level selection of similar peers remains unsettled. Recent research has evaluated the possibility that unobserved genotypes may play an important role in the creation of homophilous relationships. We extend this work by using data from 5,500 adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine genetic similarities among pairs of friends. Although there is some evidence that friends have correlated genotypes, both at the whole-genome level as well as at trait-associated loci (via polygenic scores), further analysis suggests that meso-level forces, such as school assignment, are a principal source of genetic similarity between friends. We also observe apparent social–genetic effects in which polygenic scores of an individual’s friends and schoolmates predict the individual’s own educational attainment. In contrast, an individual’s height is unassociated with the height genetics of peers.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1711803115