Religion priming differentially increases prosocial behavior among variants of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene

Abstract

Building on gene-environment interaction (G × E) research, this study examines how the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene interacts with a situational prime of religion to influence prosocial behavior. Some DRD4 variants tend to be more susceptible to environmental influences, whereas other variants are less susceptible. Thus, certain life environments may be associated with acts of prosociality for some DRD4 variants but not others. Given that religion can act as an environmental influence that increases prosocial behavior, environmental input in the form of religion priming may have G × E effects. Results showed that participants with DRD4 susceptibility variants were more prosocial when implicitly primed with religion than not primed with religion, whereas participants without DRD4 susceptibility variants were not impacted by priming. This research has implications for understanding why different people may behave prosocially for different reasons and also integrates G × E research with experimental psychology.

Religious song as a facilitator of prosocial behavior

“…Words such as "faith" and "bless" also led to increased prosocial intentions (Pichon, Boccato, & Saroglou, 2007). Unscrambling sentences which contain God-related concepts increase willingness to volunteer for environmental cause (Sasaki et al, 2011). Priming with religious words also reduced cheating (Randolph-Seng & Nielsen, 2007), and increased donations (Hernandez & Preston, 2010 as cited in Preston, Ritter, & Hernandez, 2010).…”

Culture modulates sensitivity to the disappearance of facial expressions associated with serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR)

“…That is, in addition to culture, we varied a more situational aspect of the environment-valence of emotional cues. From a gene-environment interaction perspective, there are a few studies showing that people with different genotypes may differ in their sensitivity in responding to even fleeting situational cues (Sasaki et al 2013). By adding culture as another variable in which the situational cues take place, the present study aims to test whether culture modulates the link between a gene and emotional processing, particularly sensitivity to negative and positive emotional stimuli.…”

Gene–culture interactions: a multi-gene approach

“…Data collection and analysis used Genemapper software (Applied Biosystems). Genotyping procedures for OXTR and DRD4 are described in detail in Kim et al (2011;OXTR) and Sasaki et al (2013;DRD4).…”

“…In Caucasian populations, individuals carrying the 7-repeat allele exhibit the greatest antisocial tendencies (Ebstein et al 1996), while such tendencies are highest among 2-repeat allele carriers in East Asian populations (Zhong et al 2010) or the 2-and 7-repeat alleles combined (Reist et al 2007). Thus, we grouped the 2-and 7-repeat alleles together as susceptibility variants and treated all other alleles as non-susceptibility variants across our American and Korean participants (see also Kitayama et al 2014;Sasaki et al 2013 for the same grouping).…”

“…The G 9 E framework proposes that an individual may be genetically predisposed to a particular outcome, but that outcome will manifest phenotypically only under certain environmental conditions. Gene-environment interactions have been found across neurotransmitter systems with many genes, including the dopamine D 4 receptor gene (DRD4) (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn 2006Sasaki et al 2013), oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) (Chen et al 2011), and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene (Caspi et al 2002;Foley et al 2004;KimCohen et al 2006). For example, the adverse effects of childhood maltreatment were especially pronounced in children carrying the genotype of the MAOA gene linked with susceptibility (Caspi et al 2002).…”