Littvay Levente
Department of Political Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
Twin Res Hum Genet. 2012 Feb;15(1):6-14. doi: 10.1375/twin.15.1.6.
Using data from the Minnesota Twins Political Survey, this paper tests for the presence of unequal environments (EEA) by zygosity in political attitudes. Equal environment measures used include shared bedroom, friends, classes, and dressing alike. Results show an EEA violation at p < .05 in 5% of the models tested. The violations' impact on heritability estimates and their confidence levels appear random in magnitude and direction. No reasonable post hoc explanation emerged for understanding the presence of the violation in some items but not others. This article establishes reasonable priors for the absence of EEA violations in political phenotypes based on the tested environmental components. The findings place the burden on critics to present theoretical work on the specific mechanisms of EEA violations based on which additional empirical assessments could (and should) be conducted.
本文利用明尼苏达双胞胎政治调查的数据，通过政治态度上的同卵性来检验不平等环境（EEA）的存在。所使用的平等环境衡量标准包括共用卧室、朋友、课程以及穿着相似。结果显示，在5%的测试模型中，EEA在p < .05的水平上被违反。这些违反情况对遗传力估计及其置信水平的影响在大小和方向上似乎是随机的。对于某些项目中存在违反情况而其他项目不存在这一现象，没有出现合理的事后解释。本文基于所测试的环境因素，为政治表型中不存在EEA违反情况建立了合理的先验假设。研究结果将举证责任置于批评者身上，要求他们提出关于EEA违反情况具体机制的理论研究，在此基础上可以（并且应该）进行额外的实证评估。
