The generalizability of genetic estimates

Abstract

Evidence for both the differential and generalizable nature of estimates of genetic influence has recently been found across distinct ethnic and national groups. Estimates of genetic influence on cognitive tasks calculated from Korean parent-offspring regressions significantly correlate with similar estimates from Japanese-American and European-American samples, and together they predict similarities between spouses in still other samples. Heritabilities calculated for personality in Australian twins significantly correlate with those calculated in British twins and, together with heritabilities for social attitudes calculated in Australian twins, they predict similarities between Canadian friends. Inbreeding depression scores calculated in Japan on the WISC subtests in the 1950s predict black-white difference scores on the WISC—R in the 1970s. These findings cannot be attributed to the confounding effects of measurement error for the relationships remain after controlling for reliability. The results suggest that estimates of genetic influence on various traits may be more robust across populations,languages, time periods and measurement specifics than has been considered to date.