This week, Born and Raised went to talk to @perlinedemange.bsky.social about cognitive and non-cognitive skills, and their shared genetics with education and psychopathology. Also: christmas elves! Don't miss.

1. How do citizens interpret genetic explanations for socioeconomic inequality? This question is frequently raised in debates about the implications of social science genetics, but has so far been neglected as a research topic. >

Cross-country analyses of EA PGI associations are a crucial step towards an increased understanding of how genetic influences occur in conjunction with societal structures - but also of the inevitable challenges that come with doing so. See this new study out in Molecular Psychiatry! ⬇️

Maybe the 1st study to show gene(PGI)–environment interaction in political participation? Using unique Swedish data, Oskar finds that high-SES & politically active families and early life neighbourhoods can weaken genetic influences on voting.

There’s a new kid in town! Companies are now selling IVF and embryo selection based on genetic testing for traits related to health and even intelligence. We outline methodological and ethical concerns, and warn against risks for social inequality. With the fantastic @gaiaghirardi.bsky.social

Second thesis article now out in Political Behavior! Using PGIs for ~10 000 full-pair fraternal twins in STR, combined with rich, geo-coded register data, I highlight the compensatory interaction between genetics and family + neighbourhood factors, with regards to voting. 🗳️ doi.org/10.1007/s111...

Imagine how awesome it would be to be cited as Quackenboss (2016)

Wrapping up the semester with two presentations at EPSA 2025: 1️⃣POLECO Thur. 15:00 - Effects of genetic explanations for socioeconomic outcomes on citizens’ perceptions of inequality 2️⃣POLMET Fri. 13:10 - Effects of education field on economic and social ideology within twin pairs Come chat! #EPSA

🧵1/ Are primaries bad for political diversity? Conventional wisdom says yes—but our article in @wepsocial.bsky.social shows that candidate selection modes are not necessarily a bottleneck for representation, at least when it comes to demand. 🗳️👥 @sandrahkansson.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/0140...

I think Paul Kirchner captured the PhD experience rather well

Anahita Assadi’s PhD defence is underway now: A Silent Revolution: How digital technologies are transforming public administration through the backdoor Opponent is Jenny de Fine Licht A big moment, go Anahita!

Looking forward to next week's #ESSGN IV! Happy to be presenting two projects: 1) the effects of genetic explanations for socioeconomic differences on citizens' perceptions of inequality, and 2) collaborative work on the (changing) link between cognitive skills and income in two Nordic countries.

📣 I’m delighted to share a new working paper that’s been years in the making: 🧬 “ #Gene × #Environment Interactions: Polygenic Scores and the Impact of an Early Childhood Intervention in Colombia” 👉🏻 Available here as @hceconomics.bsky.social WP: humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wp...

🧵 What kind of POPE do AMERICANS want?📸 Before the Conclave, @sophiemainz.bsky.social and I asked 1,500 U.S. adults to choose among hypothetical papal candidates. Results: Americans prefer a liberal and *non-political* Pope. The latter might be challenging for Leo XIV. Results ⬇️ Polisky Datasky

Some really interesting contrasts in our new "assumption-free heritability" preprint: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

We’re live! 🚀 Say hello to the official Bluesky account of Uppsala University's Department of Government 🏛️✨ Follow us for the latest on cutting-edge research, publications 📚, and upcoming events.

Not that I don't find this very fascinating, and while I have probably been guilty of doing something similar, I do think we need to be more precise, even in an abstract, than to describe our independent variable as "genetic propensities towards art"

This remarkable tendency of 4o not executing an entire request, but doing the first few sections, and then telling me to do the rest myself. Is this the AI equivalent of shrinkflation?

Happy to see my first thesis article out in Behavior Genetics! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This is Winston Churchill visiting the White House during World War II. Funny how he isn’t wearing a suit either. Almost like he was a wartime leader defending his country from being slaughtered and wiped out by an authoritarian aggressor.

Two abstracts accepted for presentation at #EPSA2025! Some comeback after last year's rejection...

Swedish writer Hjalmar Söderberg using Swedish writer, August Strindberg, to explain rGE in his 1912 novel The Serious Game : "Look at Strindberg. It is not that which he has experienced that is the cause for all the disgusting, horrible and deranged things he has written ...

Hello world!

"The underlying strategy behind sneaked references is to inject irrelevant and undue citations into the metadata of an accepted article at the time of its registration with scientific repositories" Well, shit.

Beginning the year with a wintery research visit at the INVEST Flagship Research Centre at University of Turku, hosted by @janierola.net . Looking forward to exploring INVEST's genetically informed register data and learning more about genetic influences on life outcomes in Nordic welfare states!

A pre-print of my first PhD thesis article is now available! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Using both standard between-family and robust within-family EA PGI models in a sample of Swedish twins born between 1925/1940 and 1989, I find...