14 DAY TRIAL // In a groundbreaking new discovery, researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) announce that genes may play an important role in determining people's sense of optimism, self-esteem and mastery. The latter is a feeling people get when they are in control of their own lives.
Together, these three aspects of the human mind contribute to provide a state of well-being that makes individuals significantly more capable of coping with adversities, including stress and depression. Both are present in full in today's society.
This new study is the first ever to discover a link between a particular gene and a person's feelings of self-esteem, mastery and optimism. The work raises interesting prospects for developing new cures for depression and other mental disorders.
Details of the new study will appear in a forthcoming print issue of the esteemed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and are already available online in the latest edition.
“I have been looking for this gene for a few years, and it is not the gene I expected. I knew there had to be a gene for these psychological resources,” UCLA distinguished professor of psychology Shelly E. Taylor explains. She was the senior author of the study.
“This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to report a gene associated with psychological resources,” says Shimon Saphire-Bernstein, who is a PhD student in psychology in Taylor's labs. The expert was also the lead author of the new study.
“However, we wanted to go further and see if psychological resources explain why the OXTR gene is tied to depressive symptoms. We found that the effect of OXTR on depressive symptoms was fully explained by psychological resources,” the PhD student explains.
The team identified the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) as playing an important role in underlying the three emotions. This makes perfect sense, since oxytocin is a hormone known to boost one's sense of well-being and pleasure. Empathy is also thought to be controlled by oxytocin concentrations.
Substantially lower levels of optimism, self-esteem and mastery were discovered in people who have a version of the gene featuring an A (adenine) and G variant, or two A variants. Those with the double G variant fare much better, displaying fewer depression-related symptoms.
“Sometimes people are skeptical that genes predict any kind of behavior or psychological state. I think we show conclusively that they do,” adds Taylor, who is also the director of the UCLA Social Neuroscience Laboratory. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well.