Personality Polygenes, Positive Affect, and Life Satisfaction.

Weiss A, Baselmans BM, Hofer E, Yang J, Okbay A, Lind PA, Miller MB, Nolte IM, Zhao W, Hagenaars SP, Hottenga JJ, Matteson LK, Snieder H, Faul JD, Hartman CA, Boyle PA, Tiemeier H, Mosing MA, Pattie A, Davies G, Liewald DC, Schmidt R, De Jager PL, Heath AC, Jokela M, Starr JM, Oldehinkel AJ, Johannesson M, Cesarini D, Hofman A, Harris SE, Smith JA, Keltikangas-Järvinen L, Pulkki-Råback L, Schmidt H, Smith J, Iacono WG, McGue M, Bennett DA, Pedersen NL, Magnusson PK, Deary IJ, Martin NG, Boomsma DI, Bartels M, Luciano M

Twin Res Hum Genet 19 (5) 407-417 [2016-10-00; online 2016-08-23]

Approximately half of the variation in wellbeing measures overlaps with variation in personality traits. Studies of non-human primate pedigrees and human twins suggest that this is due to common genetic influences. We tested whether personality polygenic scores for the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) domains and for item response theory (IRT) derived extraversion and neuroticism scores predict variance in wellbeing measures. Polygenic scores were based on published genome-wide association (GWA) results in over 17,000 individuals for the NEO-FFI and in over 63,000 for the IRT extraversion and neuroticism traits. The NEO-FFI polygenic scores were used to predict life satisfaction in 7 cohorts, positive affect in 12 cohorts, and general wellbeing in 1 cohort (maximal N = 46,508). Meta-analysis of these results showed no significant association between NEO-FFI personality polygenic scores and the wellbeing measures. IRT extraversion and neuroticism polygenic scores were used to predict life satisfaction and positive affect in almost 37,000 individuals from UK Biobank. Significant positive associations (effect sizes <0.05%) were observed between the extraversion polygenic score and wellbeing measures, and a negative association was observed between the polygenic neuroticism score and life satisfaction. Furthermore, using GWA data, genetic correlations of -0.49 and -0.55 were estimated between neuroticism with life satisfaction and positive affect, respectively. The moderate genetic correlation between neuroticism and wellbeing is in line with twin research showing that genetic influences on wellbeing are also shared with other independent personality domains.

Bioinformatics Support for Computational Resources [Service]

NGI Uppsala (SNP&SEQ Technology Platform) [Service]

National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]

PubMed 27546527

DOI 10.1017/thg.2016.65

Crossref 10.1017/thg.2016.65

pii: S1832427416000657
pmc: PMC5125297
mid: NIHMS829602


Publications 9.5.0