IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hig/wpaper/31-soc-2013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Genes, security, tolerance and happiness

Author

Listed:
  • Ronald Inglehart

    (Higher School of Economics)

  • Svetlana Borinskaya

    (Institute of General Genetics, Moscow, Russia)

  • Anna Cotter

    (University of Michigan)

  • Jaanus Harro

    (Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonian Centre of Behavioral and Health Sciences)

  • Ronald C. Inglehart

    (University of Michigan)

  • Eduard Ponarin

    (Higher School of Economics)

  • Christian Welzel

    (Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University, Scharnhorststr.)

Abstract

This paper discusses correlations between certain genetic characterestics of the human populations and their aggregate levels of tolerance and happiness. We argue that a major cause of the systematic clustering of genetic characteristics may be climatic conditions linked with relatively high or low levels of parasite. This may lead certain populations to develop gene pools linked with different levels of avoidance of strangers, which helped shape different cultures, both of which eventually helped shape economic development. Still more recently, this combination of distinctive cultural and economic and perhaps genetic factors has led some societies to more readily adopt gender equality and high levels of social tolerance, than others. More tolerant societies tend to be happier because they create a more relaxed environment conducive to happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Ronald Inglehart & Svetlana Borinskaya & Anna Cotter & Jaanus Harro & Ronald C. Inglehart & Eduard Ponarin & Christian Welzel, 2013. "Genes, security, tolerance and happiness," HSE Working papers WP BRP 31/SOC/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hig:wpaper:31/soc/2013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hse.ru/data/2013/12/30/1342090586/31SOC2013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berggren, Niclas & Nilsson, Therese, 2016. "Tolerance in the United States: Does economic freedom transform racial, religious, political and sexual attitudes?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 53-70.
    2. Berggren, Niclas & Nilsson, Therese, 2015. "Globalization and the transmission of social values: The case of tolerance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 371-389.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    genetic research; World Values Survey; happiness; tolerance.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hig:wpaper:31/soc/2013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shamil Abdulaev or Shamil Abdulaev (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hsecoru.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.