科學家發現1,000多個與人格相關的基因變異（1/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

Scientists Find More Than 1,000 Genetic Variants Linked to Personality (1/2)

More than one million genomes helped identify DNA variants linked to extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and more. Researchers measured how those traits influenced how people lived.

The NYT - By Emily Baumgaertner Nunn (Emily Baumgaertner Nunn is a national health reporter for The Times, focusing on public health issues that primarily affect vulnerable communities.)

Sept. 3, 2026

Are you naturally anxious? Highly adventurous? More argumentative than you’d like to admit?

Those tendencies are often measured through what psychologists call the “Big Five” dimensions of personality: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. Each trait exists on a continuum and tends to remain fairly stable throughout adult life.

But what determines where you land on those spectra? Scientists have long known that personality is influenced by a host of factors — including DNA. The challenge has been deciphering the specific pathways through which a genetic blueprint nudges the direction of a person’s life.

To map this sprawling architecture, a group of experts formed a research consortium and analyzed more than one million genomes, searching for variants associated with personality. The researchers also compared the genes of thousands of siblings and parent-child pairs to rule out other factors that could be at play. With data from 46 different study cohorts, they found a symphony of 1,260 genetic markers tied to personality, nearly two-thirds of them identified for the first time.

The findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, reaffirmed scientists’ understanding that temperament and disposition are shaped not by a few particular genes, but by thousands of tiny variants that can be expressed in different circumstances. The sheer scale of the project also brought new statistical power to the study of personality genetics, giving researchers a tool kit to investigate the biological mechanisms behind how we think, feel and behave.

“I view the 1,260 variants as kind of a testament to the fact that we’ve now got the power to answer all of these other questions that we couldn’t answer before,” said Elliot Tucker-Drob, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a leader of the study.

Common genetic differences identified in this study still account for only about 5 to 10 percent of personality variation among people. But experts caution against thinking about personality drivers as a pie chart, divided into neat percentages of genes versus environment. In reality, a person’s DNA and context are constantly interacting; experiences are the very tool that genetic predispositions use to mold who a person becomes.

In studies of genetic influence on educational attainment, much of what appears driven by DNA often turns out to be parental privilege or home environment in disguise. With personality, however, family comparison studies that looked for such confounding variables revealed that about 96 percent of the genetic influence indeed came directly from the DNA itself. That makes intuitive sense: Growing up in the same household might give siblings similar launching pads, but it almost never gives them similar temperaments.

Wednesday’s publication is, in some ways, a revitalization. In the late 20th century — the era of classical twin studies — personality was a central focus of behavioral genetics. But over the last decade, personality genetics has not been studied with nearly the intensity that other traits have, such as the risk of developing schizophrenia, in part because most personality traits were not considered medically relevant.

(to be continued)

科學家發現1,000多個與人格相關的基因變異（1/2）

超過一百萬個基因組幫助科學家辨識出與外向性、宜人性、神經質等人格特質相關的DNA變異。研究人員測量了這些特質如何影響人們的生活方式

你天生焦慮嗎？你充滿冒險精神嗎？你比自己願意承認的更愛爭辯嗎？

這些傾向通常透過心理學家所說的「五大人格特質」來衡量：外向性、宜人性、盡責性、神經質和開放性。每一種特質都存在於一個連續光譜上，並且在成年生活中往往保持相對穩定。

但是，是什麼決定了你在這些特質譜上的位置呢？科學家早已知道，人格受多種因素影響，包括DNA。真正的挑戰在於，如何解讀基因藍圖如何影響人的一生。

為了繪製出這套龐大的基因圖譜，一群專家組成了一個研究聯盟，分析了超過一百萬個基因組，尋找與人格相關的基因變異。研究人員還比較了數千對兄弟姐妹和親子對的基因，以排除其他可能的影響因素。他們利用來自46個不同研究隊列的數據，發現了1,260個與人格相關的基因標記，其中近三分之二是首次被發現。

這項研究成果於週三發表在《自然》雜誌上，再次印證了科學家們的認知：人的氣質和性格並非由少數特定基因決定，而是由數千個微小的基因變異共同帶來作用的結果，這些變異會在不同的情況下表達出來。該計劃的龐大規模也為性格遺傳學研究帶來了新的統計力，為研究人員提供了一套工具，用於探索我們思考、感受和行為背後的生物學機制。

德克薩斯大學奧斯汀分校心理學教授、該研究的負責人之一Elliot Tucker-Drob說道:「我認為這1,260個變異體證明了我們現在有能力回答以前無法回答的所有問題」。

這項研究中發現的常見基因差異仍只佔人格差異的5%到10%。但專家提醒，不要把性格驅動因素看成一個圓餅圖，簡單地劃分成基因和環境的百分比。事實上，一個人的DNA和環境因素一直在相互作用；個人經歷正是基因傾向塑造一個人性格的工具。

在關於基因對教育成就影響的研究中，許多看似由DNA驅動的因素，最終往往被證明是父母的優勢或家庭環境所變相驅動的。然而，在人格方面，針對此類混雜變數的家庭比較研究表明，約96%的遺傳影響確實直接來自DNA本身。這符合直覺：在同一個家庭中成長，或許能為兄弟姊妹提供相似的起點，但幾乎不可能讓他們擁有相似的個性。

週三發表的論文在某種程度上是對人格研究的復興。在20世紀後期 - 經典雙胞胎研究的時代 - 人格是行為遺傳學的核心研究方向。但在過去十年中，人格遺傳學的研究強度遠不及其他性格特徵，例如罹患精神分裂症的風險，部分原因是大多數的個人格特質被認為是無醫學上的關連。

（待續）