New research has suggested that popularity may be determined by our genes. According to studies published in the proceedings of the national academy of science, our genes can determine how many friends we may have and our social status in that network!
"We're a social species. We shouldn’t be surprised that some aspects of how we're social depends on genetics, Just like other aspects of your personality of how assertive you are,
how risk-averse you are, so does your predilection for
having particular kinds of social network architectures"
–-–Nicholas Christakis
A study carried out during 2008, focused on the possibility of inheriting the three most important social networking attributes:
1. In-degree: the number of your social ties or contacts to.
2. Transversity or clustering coefficient: the likelihood that two of your contacts are connected to each other.
3. Centrality, the number of contacts that know each other through you.
These attributes all have an affect on each other. For example, the in-degree attribute is positively correlated to centrality which would increase transverstiy. This study compares the hereditability of social networking and behavioural traits of same-sex monozygotic twins who share 100% of their segregating genes to the trait similarity of same-sex dizygotic twins who share approximately 50% of their segregating genes. “Attract and introduce” was the model used by the researches and it relies on two assumptions. Firstly, some people are inherently more attractive than others (either physically or otherwise) and thus, they receive more friendship requests or nominations. Secondly, some people are inherently more likely to introduce new contacts to existing contacts therefore increasing their own transversity. The results concluded that the social networks of the same-sex monozygotic twins resembled each others more than the dizygotic twins, suggesting genetic heritability of social traits.
This study did not point the finger at any particular genes; however other studies have shown that genetic mutations causing changes in the serotonin receptor 5-HT2A is linked to variation in popularity and social behaviours. Evidence has also suggested that there are evolutionary reasons for our social networking behaviours. However, if we are to delve further into the complexity of human social networking, a combination of social sciences, behavioural genetics, evolutionary biology and networking theory would definitely be required.
Written by Katelyn Barnes.
Fowler. J, Dawes. C, Christakis. N, Model of genetic variation in human social networks, 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.
Lite. J, Do our genes make us popular, 60 second science, 2009, available at http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=do-our-genes-make-us-popular--or-no-2009-01-26
Fowler. J, Dawes. C, Christakis. N, Model of genetic variation in human social networks, 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.
Lite. J, Do our genes make us popular, 60 second science, 2009, available at http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=do-our-genes-make-us-popular--or-no-2009-01-26
