Intellectual Investment, Dopaminergic Gene Variation, and Life Events: A Critical Examination

Alexander Strobel*, Anja Strobel, Sören Enge, Monika Fleischhauer, Andreas Reif, Klaus-Peter Lesch, Kristin Anacker

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Need for Cognition (NFC) and Openness to Ideas are intellectual investment traits that are characterized by a tendency to seek out, engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity. Little, however, is known about the extent to which they are influenced by genetic and environmental factors. With the present contribution, we aim at furthering our knowledge on the mechanisms underlying intellectual investment traits by following-up on a recent investigation of the role of dopaminergic gene variation in intellectual investment. Employing a standard approach that relied on null-hypothesis significance testing, we found that, first, two dopaminergic genetic variants interacted in modulating individual differences in NFC, but not in Openness to Ideas; that, second, negative life events played a role in the modulation of Openness to Ideas, but not of NFC; and that, third, negative life events as assessed using another measure were only marginally related to Openness to Ideas while positive life events were associated with both Openness to Ideas and NFC, with the latter effect being also dependent on exon III genotype. However, employing a Bayesian approach, the assumption of a genetic effect on investment traits was overall not supported, while the assumption of a role of positive life events in the modulation of investment traits could be confirmed, with a tentative increment in the prediction of NFC by adding an interaction of positive life events and variation to the main effect of positive life events. Our findings underscore the importance to use different approaches in the field of personality neuroscience. To gain deeper insight into the basis of personality traits does not only require to consider genetic as well as environmental influences and their interplay, but also requires more differentiated statistical analyses that can at least in part tackle the often inconsistent findings in this field.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalPersonality neuroscience
Volume1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Jul 2018

Keywords

  • Need for Cognition
  • Openness to Ideas
  • dopamine gene variation
  • investment traits
  • life events

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