14 DAY TRIAL // You think you are the only one to decide who you're spending your time with, but it seems this is far beyond your decisions. A new research made at Virginia Commonwealth University shows that as we develop, our company is increasingly determined by our genes. As we grow, our genes turn increasingly important in telling how to choose your companions. This study shows that some individuals are prone to future drug consumption or other self destructing behaviors and antisocial personality disorder.
"As we grow and move out of our own home environment, our genetically influenced temperament becomes more and more important in influencing the kinds of friends we like to hang out with," said lead author Dr. Kenneth S. Kendler, a professor of psychiatry and human genetics in VCU's School of Medicine.
"The study shows how genetic and family environmental factors influence the ways in which we create our own social environment as we grow."
This is the first research showing a connection between genetics and how people choose their social environment. Kendler's team examined peer group deviance among about 1,800 male twin pairs from mid-childhood to early adulthood, between 1998 and 2004. The subjects were from the Virginia Twin Registry, containing a population-based record of twins from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Based on a series of interviews, the team discovered that genetic factors increasingly influence how male twins make choises and integrate into their own social groups during their growth.
"The road from genes to externalizing behaviors like drug use and antisocial behaviors is not entirely direct or biological. An important part of this pathway involves our genetics influencing our own social environment, which in turn impacts on our risk for a whole host of deviant behaviors." said Kendler.
"Our results demonstrate clearly that a complete understanding of the pathway from genes to antisocial behaviors, including drug abuse, has to take into account self-selection into deviant versus benign environments. The effects of peers in adolescence can be quite powerful, either encouraging or discouraging deviant behaviors. Peers also provide access to substances of abuse." he added.