Thaindian News

New York, Oct 28 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Researchers have discovered that a gene called “DRD4” or “the liberal gene” is responsible for particular ideologies. The new work was contained in the journal The Journal of Politics. Researchers revealed after the study that the being liberal was not primarily due to people’s social life as previously thought.

The research was led by James H. Fowler of the medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego. The study sampled some 2,000 people from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The researchers lined the specific genetic information of the individuals to their social life and realized that people with a particular kind of the DRD4 gene variant were more likely to become liberals later on in their lives.

The research was sponsored by National Science Foundation. The researchers noted that liberalism might be inheritable, as psychologists have speculated for several years now. Fowler concluded that, “These findings suggest that political affiliation is not based solely on the kind of social environment people experience”. He however acknowledged that more work needs to be done before concrete statements could be made.

He said that, “It is our hope that more scholars will begin to explore the potential interaction of biology and environment. The way forward is to look for replication in different populations and age groups.”