Genes play a role in political behaviour, and the size of the effect is larger than expected.

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WASHINGTON: Genes can affect whether people tend to vote in elections or not, according to a U.S. study that suggests there is an inherited element in the urge to cast a ballot.

Donating to campaigns, running for public office and going to rallies are also impacted by genetic make-up, says the study, authored by two political scientists and one psychologist and published in the American Political Science Review.

Surprising size of effect

"We expected to find that genes played some role in political behaviour, but we were quite surprised by the size of the effect and how widely it applies to all kinds of political participation," said James Fowler, a political scientist.

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego studied the voter turnout patterns of nearly 1,200 twins - 396 in Los Angeles and 806 nationally - and found that genes were a key factor for more than half of those studied (53 per cent).

"The results suggest that individual genetic differences make up a large and significant portion of the variation in political participation, even after taking socialization and other environmental factors into account," said the study.

However, the authors noted that they are "completely silent on the specific mechanism that links genes to participation," and called for more research to explain why genes appear to play the role they do.