B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-bad to the bone

Them pesky UVA psychologists fall on the side of nature when it comes to "bad kids." The original article isn't yet available online through the journal's website, but it's a basic twin-study design.

Harden and her colleagues arrived at their conclusions by studying 1,045 adult twins and their children. Some of the twin pairs were identical, which means they shared all of their genes; the rest were fraternal, meaning they shared only some of their genes. Such studies allow researchers to tease out the effects of genes and environment on a given behavior.

I'm impressed with the journalist's explicit avoidance of "naming" a gene:

There may be no "argument" gene, but genes do influence personality traits, including those that make people more or less prone to confrontation.

But in the end, that may harm the UVA researchers financially. No way they'll get a book deal without a catchy gene name

First posted at Psyche Killer qu'est que c'est on 2/9/07