YOU AND YOUR TAQI A REPEAT FRAGMENT LENGTH POLYMORPHISM….Some of us are raging partisans. Some of us are mushy independents. According to Christopher Dawes and James Fowler of UC San Diego, part of the reason is in your genes. In particular, partisanship is mediated by the TaqI A repeat fragment length polymorphism in the DRD2 gene.
Here’s the deal: Compared to people who have two copies of the major A2 allele, it turns out that people with the minor A1 allele are less partisan. “Holding the control variables at their means and changing the number of A1 alleles from zero to one decreases average partisanship by about 4 percentage points and from zero to two by about 8 percentage points.”
And how does this break down for the population as a whole? Like so: 54% of us have two copies of the A2 allele, 37% have one A1 allele, and 8% have two A1 alleles.
For obvious reasons, don’t take this too seriously. But still, be honest: doesn’t this give you the urge to rush out and get your DRD2 gene tested to find out just how partisan you are? And don’t you have a few friends you’d like to get tested too?
