Round-up: Do close friends have similar IQs?
The most interesting articles that came to our attention this week
Genetic associations with educational fields. Rosa Cheesman and colleagues carry out a genome-wide association study of educational field choice using a large sample from Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. They identify 17 genetic loci independently associated with choice of field — after controlling for years of schooling and other background factors. Analysing genetic correlations across field choices, they uncover two dimensions: technical versus social and practical versus abstract.
Testing the Late Pleistocene Arctic Origins of East Asian Psychology using Ancient and Modern DNA. Davide Piffer tests the theory that arctic climates in the late Pleistocene shaped East Asian psychology. He finds that populations living at high latitudes have lower average polygenic scores for extraversion and neuroticism, and higher average scores for agreeableness. And he finds that these associations become weaker when controlling for ancient Northeast Asian ancestry.
