As the level of family politicization & consistency increases, the influence of genes decreases; we take this to imply that family socialization can compensate for (genetic) individual differences & foster increased political engagement

Rasmussen, Stig H. R., Aaron Weinschenk, Chris Dawes, Jacob v. Hjelmborg, and Robert Klemmensen. 2021. “Parental Transmission and the Importance of the (non-causal) Effects of Education on Political Engagement: Missing the Forest for the Trees.” PsyArXiv. June 7. doi:10.31234/osf.io/agn8t

Abstract: By most accounts, an important prerequisite for a well-functioning democracy is engaged citizens. A very prominent explanation of variation in political engagement suggests that parental transmission through socialization accounts for individual-level differences in political engagement. In this paper, we show that classic formulations of parental transmission theory can be supplemented by findings from the bio-politics literature, allowing us to disentangle when heritable factors are important and when socialization factors are important predictors of political engagement. The paper demonstrates that the effect of education on various measures of political engagement is confounded by both genes and parental socialization; no previous study has documented the importance of both of these confounders. We then go on to show that as the level of family politicization and consistency increases, the influence of genes decreases. We take this to imply that family socialization can compensate for (genetic) individual differences and foster increased political engagement. By only focusing on the “causal” effect of education, we are missing the forest for the trees.