Political and religious attitudes are influenced by both environmental and genetic factors.

The Constitution is widely interpreted to separate the church from the state in the US, but religious and political attitudes are often closely related. In new research Amanda Friesen and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz examine how the intersection of religion and politics influences people’s worldviews and how this in turn is influenced by genetics. Using a twin study, they find that the importance of religion in people’s minds is positively linked with conservative views on social issues, and that much of this relationship is due to genetics, though environmental factors are also important.