Genes and personalities

According to some new studies, certain personality traits are linked to our genetic makeup. Those traits include extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience.

To reach their conclusions, researchers analyzed more than a million genomes and ten million variants, looking for the variants associated with personality types. (A genetic variant is a permanent change or difference in the DNA sequence that helps make us unique.)

The researchers found, for example, that a high extroversion profile seemed to reduce a person’s risk of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, presumably because people with that profile are less likely to internalize their distress and more likely to share it with others. Neuroticism, which is defined as a tendency toward emotional instability, was correlated with 10 different psychiatric disorders, plus a higher body mass index and increased rates of smoking.

Your DNA and your experiences interact to mold the person you become. You and your siblings may have grown up in the same household environment, but, because of different DNA, your personalities are also likely to be different.

I went to the 23andMe website to see if my personality traits might be listed. They’re not, although I did see that there’s 93 percent chance that I’ve never had dandruff and a 71 percent chance that I don’t have stretch marks. Both are true. Maybe in a few years they’ll list my personality traits, although I’ve pretty much figured those out for myself.

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