Genetic and Environmental Parent-Child Transmission of Value Orientations: An Extended Twin Family Study.

Despite cross-cultural universality of core human values, individuals differ substantially in value priorities, whereas family members show similar priorities to some degree. The latter has often been attributed to intrafamilial socialization. The analysis of self-ratings on eight core values from 399 twin pairs (ages 7-11) and their biological parents (388 mothers, 249 fathers; ages 26-65) allowed the disentanglement of environmental from genetic transmission accounting for family resemblance in value orientations. Results indicated that parent-child similarity is primarily due to shared genetic makeup. The primary source of variance in value priorities represented environmental influences that are not shared by family members. These findings do not provide evidence for parental influences beyond genetic influences contributing to intrafamilial similarity in value priorities.