Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
27590902
TITLE
The Role of Genes and Environment in Degree of Partner Self-Similarity.
ABSTRACT
NlmCategory: UNASSIGNED
Choice of romantic partner is an enormously important component of human life, impacting almost every facet of day-to-day existence, however; the processes underlying this choice are remarkably complex and have so far been largely resistant to scientific explanation. One consistent finding is that, on average, members of romantic dyads tend to be more alike than would be expected by chance. Selecting for self-similarity is at least partially driven by phenotypic matching wherein couples share similar phenotypes, and preferences for a number of these traits are partly genetically influenced (e.g., education, height, social attitudes and religiosity). This suggests that genetically influenced preferences for self-similarity might contribute to phenotypic matching (and thus assortative mating), but it has never been studied in actual couples. In the present study, we use a large sample of twins to model sources of variation in self-similarity between partners. Biometrical modelling revealed that very little of the variation in the tendency to assortatively mate across 14 traits was due to genetic effects (7 %) or the shared environment of twins (0 %).
DATE PUBLISHED
2016 Sep 2
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
received 2015/12/11
accepted 2016/08/18
aheadofprint 2016/09/02
entrez 2016/09/04 06:00
pubmed 2016/09/04 06:00
medline 2016/09/04 06:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Sherlock JM Sherlock James M JM School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia. james.sherlock@uqconnect.edu.au.
Verweij KJ Verweij Karin J H KJ Department of Biological Psychology, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Murphy SC Murphy Sean C SC Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia.
Heath AC Heath Andrew C AC Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Martin NG Martin Nicholas G NG Genetic Epidemiology, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Zietsch BP Zietsch Brendan P BP Genetic Epidemiology, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Brisbane, QLD, Australia. zietsch@psy.uq.edu.au.
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME:
ISSUE:
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 2016
MONTH: Sep
DAY: 2
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Internet
ISSN: 1573-3297
ISSNTYPE: Electronic
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Behav Genet
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0001-8244
NLMUNIQUEID: 0251711
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
JOURNAL ARTICLE
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
KEYWORD
Assortative mating
Mate choice
Quantitative genetics
Romantic preference
Self-similarity
MESH HEADINGS
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's