Investigating the Genetic Architecture of Non-Cognitive Skills Using GWAS-by-Subtraction

Abstract

Educational attainment (EA) is influenced by cognitive abilities and by other characteristics and traits. However little is known about the genetic architecture of these "non-cognitive" contributions to EA. Here, we use Genomic Structural Equation Modelling and results of prior genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of EA (N = 1,131,881) and cognitive test performance (N = 257,841) to estimate SNP associations with variation in EA that is independent of cognitive ability. We identified 157 genome-wide significant loci and a polygenic architecture accounting for 57% of genetic variance in EA. Phenotypic and biological annotation revealed that (1) both cognitive and non-cognitive contributions to EA were genetically correlated with socioeconomic success and longevity; and (2) non-cognitive contributions to EA were related to personality, decision making, risk-behavior, and increased risk for psychiatric disorders; (3) non-cognitive and cognitive contributions to EA were enriched in the same tissues and cell types, but (4) showed different associations with graymatter neuroimaging phenotypes.

Estimating effects of parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills on offspring education using polygenic scores

“…We identified the genetic components of cognitive and non-cognitive skills using Genomic SEM, following the approach of Demange et al 2020, in samples that excluded participants used for polygenic score analyses. Educational attainment and cognitive performance meta-analysed summary statistics (see Methods) were regressed on two independent latent variables, Cog and NonCog (see Supplementary Figure 1).…”

“…Both non-cognitive and cognitive skills are substantially genetically influenced, with twin study heritability estimates of 40-70% (Tucker-Drob et al 2016; Kovas et al 2015). Demange et al developed a new method called 'GWAS-bysubtraction', using Genomic Structural Equation Modelling (Grotzinger et al 2019) to 'subtract' cognitive ability-related genetic variation from educational attainment genetic variance and assess the remaining latent genetic non-cognitive construct (Demange et al 2020). These noncognitive aspects of educational attainment are independent of cognitive skills, and associated with higher socioeconomic attainment, more open and conscientious personality, and some psychiatric disorders (e.g.…”

Genetic Fortune: Winning or Losing Education, Income, and Health

“…Kweon et al 2020 This FAQ was prepared by several of the study's coauthors and draws from and builds on the FAQs for earlier SSGAC papers, as well as the FAQ of (Demange et al 2020), which was written by one of the coauthors of the present study, Paige Harden. Questions and comments about the paper or this FAQ should be sent to Philipp Koellinger (koellinger@wisc.edu).…”

Maternal depression and child human capital: A genetic instrumental-variable approach

“…We here again use the summary statistics from the depression meta-analysis GWAS in to calculate a PGS for depression in children. We use the GWAS-bysubtraction summary data from Demange et al (2021) and the summary statistics from the genome-wide association meta-analysis of to calculate the PGSs for cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We do not use Demange et al (2021) to calculate the PGS for non-cognitive skills, as the weights from a GWAS on an adult population might not be relevant for children (see Zhang et al, 2015).…”

“…We use the GWAS-bysubtraction summary data from Demange et al (2021) and the summary statistics from the genome-wide association meta-analysis of to calculate the PGSs for cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We do not use Demange et al (2021) to calculate the PGS for non-cognitive skills, as the weights from a GWAS on an adult population might not be relevant for children (see Zhang et al, 2015). Columns (1), (5) and (9) in Table 3 show the baseline 2SLS estimated coefficients for maternal depression from Table 2; the other columns introduce various child PGS measures.…”