Literary tastes are as heritable as other human phenotypes: Evidence from twins' library borrowing.

ABSTRACT: Social science research argues that differences in individuals' literary and cultural tastes originate in social environments. Yet, it might be that these differences are partly associated with genetic differences between individuals. To address this possibility, we use nation-scale registry data on library borrowing among Danish twins (N = 67,900) to assess the heritability of literary tastes. We measure literary tastes via borrowing of books of different genres (e.g., crime and biographical novels) and formats (physical, digital, and audio) and decompose the total variance in literary tastes into components attributable to shared genes (heritability), shared environments (social environment shared by siblings), and unique environments (social environments not shared by siblings). We find

SUBMITTER: Jæger MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11226123 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature