Traditionalism and obedience to authority show strong genetic heritability

Evidence

Then, in late December 1986, I read a New York Times News Service article by Daniel Goleman based on a paper the Minnesota team had submitted for publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (Newspapers do not ordinarily pick up scientific papers that have just been submitted to a journal.) The news story stated at one point, “Among traits found most strongly determined by heredity were leadership and, surprisingly, traditionalism or obedience to authority.” The part about leadership harkened back to Aristotle’s view that a few of us are born for greatness, while most of us are born to be followers. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 892

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the book’s central thesis about authoritarian submission; the genetic finding challenges purely socialized accounts of RWA.