Gene Friend!

Recent research suggests that our genes play a part in who we choose our friends to be. Scientists, from the University of California, mapped out the friendship networks of over 9,000 people in order to identify genetic markers in six specific genes. They looked at how often they occurred among friends and found two genes that did affect friendships.

The first gene, a variant of DRD2, has been associated with alcoholism. Individuals with this gene tended to befriend others with the same marker, and vice versa, those who did not have the gene, tended to befriend others without it. The second gene, CYP2A6, is linked to individuals with an ‘open’ personality. Those with this gene tended to befriend and drift towards those without it.

The obvious theory here is that those who are not alcoholics avoid those who are, or at least avoid the places that alcoholics are most likely to be. Having friends of a similar genetic make-up may have a magnifying effect on personality traits, such as those with a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Two alcoholic best friends are highly likely to only exacerbate each others addiction, as opposed to help it. Although, it has been found that recovering addicts are more successful if they receive help and support from fellow recovering addicts, but this isn’t directly related and I’ll save it for another time. In terms of the major issue of friendships and geography, we all know locality does influence who we make friends with, its just obvious. However, this study took this factor into account and the results still remained significant.

Finally, the main issue this study highlights is that of our social environment itself being an evolutionary force. “An important implication of these results is that genetic structure in human populations may result not only from the formation of reproductive unions, but also from the formation of friendship unions within a population,” said the scientists. ‘Human evolution may to some extent have been shaped by interactions between genes and friendship choices’.

Source from: http://seeamanaboutsomescience.co.uk/category/social/

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