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The Genetics of Happiness
Hugh Pickens writes "Studies comparing identical twins with non-identical twins have helped to establish the heritability of many aspects of behavior. Recent work suggests that about one third of the variation in people's happiness is heritable. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve has taken the study a step further, picking a popular suspect — the gene that encodes the serotonin-transporter protein, a molecule that shuffles a brain messenger called serotonin through cell membranes — and examined how variants of the 5-HTT gene affect levels of happiness. The serotonin-transporter gene comes in two functional variants—long and short and people have two versions (known as alleles) of each gene, one from each parent. After examining genetic data from more than 2,500 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, De Neve found that people with one long allele were 8% more likely than those with none to describe themselves as very satisfied with life and those with two long alleles were 17% more likely of describing themselves as very satisfied. Interestingly enough, there is a notable variation across races with Asian Americans in the sample having on average 0.69 long genes, white Americans with 1.12, and black Americans with 1.47. 'It has long been suspected that this gene plays a role in mental health but this is the first study to show that it is instrumental in shaping our individual happiness levels (PDF),' writes De Neve. 'This finding helps to explain why we each have a unique baseline level of happiness and why some people tend to be naturally happier than others, and that's in no small part due to our individual genetic make-up.'"
So the summary implies that black people are expected to be happier. Is that what is observed in the wild?
We wouldn't have a republican party
So how long until the protein the long allele encodes is produced and sold as happiness drug?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I was told it isn't length that makes happy. It is width.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
There is an excelent Stanford course in youtube.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
Did the study differentiate between "Happy" people and delusional people?
and that's in no small part due to our individual genetic make-up.
I know this is a semantically pedantic rant, but when I see comments like that, it just makes me want to face palm. Of course our genetic make-up determines who we are. Whether we're happy (as in this study), the color of our eyes, male/female/miscellaneous (Hindu! There are 700 million of us!), how tall we are or whatever, it is our genes that, almost without exception, determine who we are.
To say otherwise, or feign surprise, is just stupid.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
how long before we make sense of it all, and are able to influence endogenous levels of dmt (happiness drug)-which binds to these 5-HT receptors
There's a word you don't see every day. I wonder why they didn't just say hereditary? Perhaps they didn't think they could spell it?
If everyone was happy it wouldn't mean anything, not having been contrasted with sadness.
On the contrary... we'd be partying non-stop.
They found a Hindu gene? Can you cite? And how close are they to fiinding the pentecostal gene yet?
2 points.
First - Yes - it has been obsered in the wild. That was the point of the study.
Second - and this is imporant - they were testing "Black Americans". African gene are the most heterogeneous - which is what one would expect from the cradle of mankind. "Black Americans" genes are much more homogeneous since they were drawn from a limited pool. So while we can say this is true for Black Americans but it does not say anything about Africans in general.
Mob psychology is the echo chamber of common sense. And that's the good outcome. Even worse is nature/nurture where there was never much common sense to begin with.
Yes, there are correlates on both sides despite one or more mixing rounds of bent functions.
How does one perform medical epidemiology on an encryption block your kid sister wrote? Let's say your kid sister is Judit Polgar and she's almost smart enough to get this right (having not actually majored in math or computer science), but then you truncate to two rounds, so it's more like scrambling eggs with a spatula rather than an egg beater. This is a good model for the human nature/nurture system.
Permute the keys bits holding the block bits constant. Permute the block bits holding the key bits constant. Throw this into a powerful statistics whizinart, then press "publish" to gasps and wows from the bleachers of humanity who are slow to grasp that their common sense on this matter is six feet under.
Yeah, you can probably partition into dozens of sub-regions of statistically significant linearity manipulating the input bits on either side. There's many discernible chunks of white and yolk in the spastic scramble.
Even if you take major features of culture (such as our universal 12 year educational system, which represents about a millisecond of our 80ka recent history) and correlate genes most amenable to this, there's a wide span of orbital radius as experienced by any particular member of the population.
If a trillion dollars worth of epidemiology tells you less about a person on a quick reading of their gene chart than you get from an astute five minute introductory conversation, what exactly has all this research accomplished?
What we will find eventually are a few genes or gene complexes which correlate strongly with the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of proposed interventions (such as reading assistance). The exact fractal coefficient on little peaks of signal exploitation is certainly a quantity of interest moving forward. I'm pretty sure it's bounded from above by log (panacea).
We'll all become a tiny bit better at playing to strength. And most of the rest of the signal will fall below the noise floor of messy human affairs.
Here's the surprise twist: astute assessment is thin on the ground (the sap to syrup problem) and nearly impossible to institutionalize. So unless our machines become astute ASAP (as some predict), we'll probably press forward with the institutional seal club of genomic aphorism.
Not that I put much store in such things, but studies and surveys show your statement is totally backwards--republicans (or, more specifically, conservatives) tend to be happier than democrats (liberals):
http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/04/23/conservatives-are-happier-than-liberals-discuss/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=BABCDEA5-D180-499B-094168CBE5442468
On a purely anecdotal level, I would say that I would categorize more of my conservative friends as "happy people" than I would my liberal friends. There are of course dozens of exceptions, and, like I said, I don't put much store in this stuff anyway (especially non-scientific anecdotal).
I have depression and have had it since I was 16. My parents don't. My brothers don't. No one in my family on either side suffers from it. And yet, SSRI's work for me, not NRI's, DRI's or MAOI's. I wouldn't associate it with genetics based purely on subjective observations.
I am certain dozens were nodding their heads in fervent agreement.
That's so depressing. :(
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Here's the caveat in the actual paper:
We nd evidence of signicant association in both data sets,
suggesting that the SLC6A4 gene may play a role in explaining subjective
well-being. While we do not claim that SLC6A4 determines happiness, nor
do we exclude the possibility that several other genes may also play a role,
we do think that the results suggest at least one possible causal pathway
able to account for the inuence of genes on happiness
Here's a quote from The Economist describing the paper:
Recent work on both these fronts suggests that happiness is highly heritable . . . so, presumably, the tendency to be happy or miserable is, to some extent, passed on through DNA.
"Suggests" is a scientific weasel word that can be improperly read by morons as "concludes." Or intentionally misconstrued by journalists because a study that doesn't conclude anything and merely provides a data set that may be useful in the future isn't that interesting and they want clicks. Doing more studies may show a regression toward the mean. A more nuanced classification of the participants may suggest something else. Call me a skeptic - I'll take it as a compliment. Skepticism is logical. Drawing conclusions from this study is not.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
African Americans with the most long alleles, whites in the middle, and Asians with short alleles. I'm Asian and my alleles are just fine, thanks!
Not after two or three generations of 'Massa' creeping out for some action in the slave quarters (and occasionally dying of pneumonia during Virginia winter visits, ahem).
Every Night and every Morn,
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night,
Some are Born to Sweet Delight.
Some are Born to Sweet Delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.
- William Blake
Maybe this can explain socioeconomic conditions as well. Perhaps this is why American blacks don't seem to have as many overachievers and mostly live in poverty (even with the huge amount of opportunities they have compared to the rest of the world). Even though they complain about being downtrodden, because of this happiness genetics they are already a bit more naturally happy than the next guy, so don't have as much of a driving force to get out of the ghettos. It might also explain why poor Asians arriving from crappy countries manage to get themselves and their families in general out of poverty quickly, raising doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Most boat people type of immigrant Asians start out at the same poverty level as many American blacks (or even lower), but given the same opportunities as blacks and that the Asians are never naturally happier, they try to achieve happiness through work and competitive success (e.g. making money) in the workforce. And white folks who seem to be in the middle in this study, are in the middle in this way as well. Sure this is a generalization, but that is what statistics are, and why they reflect real life. I just hope American blacks don't see this as making an excuse, since as a group and as individuals they are in reality just as capable as the next person when, like everyone else, they get moving (and given that other poor peoples broken out by ethnic group don't seem to allow themselves as a group to feel or be trapped in poverty like the American black). Except everyone else gets moving sooner since they aren't as able to feel happy wherever they are any given moment in their life. Posting A/C since the politically correct here will likely hate this open dialog.
It seems most studies of heritable traits do not differentiate between genetic and memetic heritability. Memetic is transference by meme, as opposed to transference by gene. Criticisms of memetics focused on their instability as being too much to be meaningul, in evolutionary terms. I agree so long as they are referring to the focus of most past memetic research on memes like in pop culture and in contemporary advertising, such as "got milk?" and all its variants.
However, memes straddle a broad progression of stability levels from the extremely stable like concepts in language, to mid-level stability such as trades, cultural values, and commonly held beliefs, to the highly unstable as I mention above.
What memetic factors might influence happiness? How about a culture of optimism verses pessimism? What about value of not being a quitter? How about being a diligent worker, being socially hostile, or just socially different and thereby not well accepted like many readers of slashdot?
As someone with a severe anxiety disorder who's on a fairly high dose of an SSRI (or, more accurately, a SNRI--though I have taken two different SSRIs previously), I have to say that it has massively improved my life, by making the anxiety I experience pretty much that of an ordinary person, and I've neither lost any of the highs or lows, nor found myself more complacent (and the same is true for the SSRIs I took previously). I've been on this SNRI for many years now, and during that time, far from being complacent or lacking drive, I've moved halfway across the world to pursue a PhD (which is going well!), and undertaken numerous new and demanding projects. I've also had periods of great sadness and worry, and feeling extremely down (though in a 'normal', rather than unmanageable way, as I would feel off the SNRI), and also experienced complete elation and periods of enormous happiness. People tend to react very differently to the various SSRIs and SNRIs--which is why it may take some difficult trial and error to find the right one for you at first. And, it is possible that none might work for a given person; but, I would hate for anyone to suffer untreated through the hell of an anxiety disorder on the mistaken assumption that they would necessarily lose the normal ups and downs of life on any SSRI they took. I did experience that 'flattening' on one SSRI, but I stopped taking it right away and found a far better option for me. Good luck!
I feel like 5HTT!
Baseline happiness can arguably be negatively correlated to competitiveness, drive and success. You are naturally happy, so you don't worry about making things better for yourself or your children, you just go with the flow because things are pretty good the way they are.
Check out the decisions of people before and after they go on an SSRI. The small sample of SSRI users I know tend to fall into a complacent, ultimately self destructive, state when they are on the pills for too long (6 months or more). It's not something I've seen widely published in the literature, just personal observation shared between myself and other non-SSRI users about SSRI users we know.
There are lots of myths about anti depressants out there. Some by the "Say no to drugs" types or the crazies (Tom Cruise).
I definitely disagree with the self destructive part.
I take anti depressants and have been for years. They make it possible for me to be happy. I still have bad days. I have happy days. But without the ADs, I would be unhappy/depressed all the time. It's just like someone saying "Without my prevacid, I'd have acid upset all the time" or "Without my metformin (diabetes drug) I'd have high sugar all the time and feel awful".
Some things that are true:
They have a ramp up/ramp down time. Most take 6 weeks before you can tell it's working. There's a wash out time too. If you switch medicines, you have to ramp down and up. You will go through depression again. Imagine if you had to do that with antibiotics?
If you don't take them every day, you will not get the full effect. I take mine morning & night. If I forget one, I will get a headache. Just like if I skip my morning coffee I get a caffeine headache. It's a withdrawal symptom.
Everyone is affected differently. Some might do well with paxil, some might not be affected at all. It's not like penicillin where it has the same affect on everyone that takes it. It takes awhile to find the right one.
They have side effects that vary per patient. Zoloft made me zone out. paxil made me grind my teeth. Other patients will be affected differently. You might have to search for the right one for you.
If you stop taking them, they might not work when if you start up again. I tried St. John's Wort (9 weeks before it takes effect, 3 times a day too) and it worked. I stopped 6 months later. After 3 months, I got depressed again. It no longer worked on me and I went to the pharmacuticals with my Dr. I had another AD stop working and had to switch.
Imagine if you were taking amoxicillian and it wasn't working. So you ramp down, get your infection back stronger, switch to zitromax and that works. And next time you took amoxicillian it no longer worked.
FWIW - people break into pharmacies to get Oxycodin. They don't do that for antidepressants because they don't make you high.
http://ceomagazine.biz/hrmproverbs/happinessproverbs.htmh