Is Entrepreneurship and Leadership in Our Genes?
From a Wall Street Journal review by Daniel Akst of the book, Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders:
More than half the difference between people in their “big five” personality traits—openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism—appears to be genetic. More than half the variance between people in intelligence is also genetic… Our comfort with risk-taking, our scores on tests gauging management potential, our tendency to plan rather than act spontaneously—in each case, Mr. Shane says, inherited traits play a role. Heredity is even a factor in how much value we place on future income.
As for leadership, Mr. Shane cites a study in which 47% of identical twins raised by different parents had the same leadership potential as measured by the California Personality Inventory (a reliable guide, at least in this category).
OK, 47% twins had the same potential. That means that 53% had different potential. Are we flipping a coin here?
Were the different parents in similar cultural conditions that might transmit entrepreneurship? Maybe we’re just attributing all the stuff that doesn’t vary with known covariates to genetics?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Wikipedia (I know, I know) article says that many of the scales on the California Personality Inventory are intercorrelated…so how do we know the estimates are actually different?
I haven’t looked at the test, but the authors are implyinng that there is only one way the twins could have the same outcomes, but many ways they could have different outcomes. This would make a 47% match much more significant than a mere coin toss.
Joe,
Yes, of course. But what’s the same? Identical numbers on the hundreds of multiple choice question? Or being “close enough” on one of the groupings?
In part I’m just being contrary because I’m sick of press reports that treat questionable results from questionable data as The Answer. Until reporters start asking these kinds of questions, and answering them in articles, I fear we’ll never know. Who has time to check?
You would think that if work performance were genetic that companies would start initiating a “bring your kid to work” program to train new talent. (Assuming the parents are hard workers.)
This still seems to me like a bit of a coin toss. For one thing, I know a lot of families that have 2-3 kids, and the kids are completely different. One kid loves music and hates school. The other is tone deaf and has glasses thicker than Coke bottles from all of that reading.
Might part of this also be situational? The kid of a mathematician grows up with slide rulers scattered around the house. A musician’s kid always hears music. I suppose it’s the whole nature vs. nurture arguement.