Polygenic Score for Educational Attainment Captures DNA Variants Shared Between Personality Traits and Educational Achievement

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 2019-12, Vol.117 (6), p.1145-1163
• Main Authors: Smith-Woolley, Emily, Selzam, Saskia, Plomin, Robert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Academic Achievement Motivation; Academic Achievement Prediction; Academic Success; Achievement; Adolescent; Agreeableness; Analysis of covariance; Cognitive ability; Cognitive functioning; Compulsory education; Conscientiousness; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA - genetics; Educational attainment; Educational Attainment Level; Extraversion; Extraversion, Psychological; Female; Genetic susceptibility; Genetics; Genomics; Human; Humans; Individual differences; Male; Motivation; Multifactorial Inheritance - genetics; Navigation Technology; Neuroticism; Openness; Personality; Personality - genetics; Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data; Personality Traits; Resilience; United Kingdom; Variants; Well being
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000241

Genome-wide polygenic scores (GPS) can be used to predict individual genetic risk and resilience. For example, a GPS for years of education (EduYears) explains substantial variance in cognitive traits such as general cognitive ability and educational achievement. Personality traits are also known to contribute to individual differences in educational achievement. However, the association between EduYears GPS and personality traits remains largely unexplored. Here, we test the relation between GPS for EduYears, neuroticism, and well-being, and 6 personality and motivation domains: Academic Motivation, Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness. The sample was drawn from a U.K.-representative sample of up to 8,322 individuals assessed at age 16. We find that EduYears GPS was positively associated with Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Academic Motivation, predicting between 0.6% and 3% of the variance. In addition, we find that EduYears GPS explains between 8% and 16% of the association between personality domains and educational achievement at the end of compulsory education. In contrast, both the neuroticism and well-being GPS significantly accounted for between 0.3% and 0.7% of the variance in a subset of personality domains. Furthermore, they did not significantly account for any of the covariance between the personality domains and achievement, with the exception of the neuroticism GPS explaining 5% of the covariance between Neuroticism and achievement. These results demonstrate that the genetic effects of educational attainment relate to personality traits, highlighting the multifaceted nature of EduYears GPS.