Genes can predict success in life, but not happiness

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Next time you have a success, you’d better toast your genes as well as your supportive family, teachers and pets. Subtle variations across the genome can go a small way to predicting how likely a person is to have a prestigious job, a high income, to do better than their parents and to have a likeable personality – in short, to be successful.

Daniel Belsky at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has been looking at data on a group of 918 New Zealanders, now in their 40s, who have been studied since they were born. Researchers have collected reams of data on these individuals over their lives, including everything from the age at which they started to speak, walk and use a potty, to their movements, jobs, health, intelligence, self-control and personalities. “We have a rich picture of them,” says Belsky.

When Belsky and his colleagues looked at the genetic profiles of the New Zealanders, they found that those with higher polygenic scores not only had a greater education, but went on to achieve more in other ways.

Read full, original post: Genetic test predicts your success in life, but not happiness

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