Tabetha McCrimmon
BSC 1005
September 9, 2012
Is Empathy in Our Genes? This interesting article by Amanda Macmillan from CNN.com is about human genes. This article states that certain character traits are linked to a gene variation in our DNA. Traits such as honesty, empathy and understanding are said to have not only their own gene, but also the gene is a receptor for the brain chemical oxytocin. Oxytocin is also called the “love hormone” and is associated with certain social behaviors such as apprehension and the ability to bond with others. The gene variation, scientists discovered comes in “G” and “A”. People who have two “G” variations of the receptor gene are the people who are more sociable and confident. Contrarily, people with at least one “A” variant are the ones who don’t handle stress very well and tend to have mental-health issues. Another down side to the “A” variant is one has a greater chance of being autistic. Serena Rodrigues Saturn, a senior author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology from Oregon State University did a study with twenty-three couples. They then had one partner recall a difficult time in their life while the other listened. She then showed the silent video clip to 116 people and asked them to rate how caring the listening partner was. Astoundingly, the watchers had sixty percent accuracy when it came to the “GG” genotype and ninety percent accuracy of the “A” genotype. Keith Kendrick, a neuroscientist at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, explains while this new discovery is ground-breaking, one should not eliminate life experiences when it comes to human