Why people think kindness is in your DNA but selfishness isn’t

People tend to believe that good behavior reflects who someone really is and is more deeply rooted in their biology, but are less likely to see bad behavior the same way. A new study published in Public Understanding of Science provides evidence that this tendency may be shaped by how natural a behavior seems.

People tend to be more comfortable attributing positive behavior to genetic causes than negative behavior. Past work has consistently found this pattern, but the reasons for it have remained unclear. Some theories suggest that people are motivated to hold wrongdoers accountable and are reluctant to attribute antisocial behavior to biological factors.

Others have proposed that people see positive traits as part of a person’s “true self,” and that they associate genes with this essential core. A third possibility is that people see good behavior as more natural, and that this sense of naturalness increases the likelihood that they’ll see it as genetically caused.

The new study aimed to test these three possible explanations more thoroughly. The researchers also wanted to know whether the pattern of greater genetic attribution for good behavior was influenced by the identity of the person whose behavior was being judged.

“The origin story of this work lies in the fact that my colleagues and I had noticed some inconsistency in the research literature about the effects of genetic explanations for behavior on perceptions of blameworthiness,” said study author Matthew S. Lebowitz, an assistant professor of medical psychology at Columbia University.

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“When people are given information suggesting that a stigmatized health outcome, such as obesity or a mental health problem, may have a genetic cause, this often seems to reduce the extent to which people with these conditions are blamed for having them. But when people are told that immoral behavior, such as criminality, is influenced by genetic causes, this does not consistently lead to reductions in the perceived blameworthiness of the perpetrator. We wondered whether this might be because people are skeptical of the idea that genetic factors can cause wrongdoing.”

To investigate these questions, the research team recruited a nationally representative sample of 1,500 adults in the United States. The participants were randomly assigned to read a short description of a fictional person named Pat. In some versions, Pat was described as being kind, generous, and caring. In other versions, Pat was described as mean, selfish, and uncaring. Across different versions, Pat was also randomly described as either a man or a woman, and as either Black or White.

After reading about Pat, participants were asked a series of questions. These included how much they thought Pat’s behavior reflected Pat’s true self, how responsible Pat was for their behavior, how natural the behavior seemed, and how much of a role they thought genetics played in causing it. Each response was rated on a scale from 1 to 7. These ratings allowed the researchers to examine whether perceptions of responsibility, true self, or naturalness could explain why people were more likely to see good behavior as genetically influenced.

In line with previous research, Lebowitz and his colleagues found that people tended to see prosocial behavior, such as being generous or kind, as more genetically influenced than antisocial behavior, such as being selfish or mean. On average, participants gave higher genetic attribution scores when Pat was described positively. This difference was not affected by Pat’s race or gender. That is, the tendency to link genes to good behavior more than bad behavior occurred regardless of whether Pat was a man or a woman, or Black or White.

However, when the researchers looked at the overall level of genetic attributions, they did find differences based on race and gender. Participants were less likely to say that behavior was caused by genetics when Pat was described as a Black man, compared to a White man. This pattern did not appear among the female versions of Pat. The study did not test directly why this pattern occurred, but the authors suggest it may reflect broader cultural beliefs or stereotypes.

To understand what might explain the main difference in genetic attributions between prosocial and antisocial behavior, the researchers conducted a series of analyses testing the three possible mediators. First, they looked at how strongly each factor—responsibility, true self, and naturalness—predicted genetic attributions. They found that both true self and naturalness ratings were significantly related to genetic explanations, but responsibility ratings were not.

Next, they used statistical mediation analyses to determine whether these factors explained the link between behavior type and genetic attributions. The clearest finding was that perceived naturalness played a large role. When people saw behavior as more natural, they were more likely to see it as genetically influenced. Since people tended to view kind and generous behavior as more natural than selfish or mean behavior, this helped explain why prosocial behavior was more often attributed to genes.

True self ratings also played a role, but a smaller one. People tended to see good behavior as more reflective of Pat’s true self, and this increased the likelihood of attributing the behavior to genes. However, this effect was not as strong as the one linked to naturalness.

Responsibility ratings, by contrast, did not significantly mediate the relationship. In fact, participants rated Pat as less responsible in the antisocial condition than in the prosocial one, a finding that did not align with some earlier research and may point to complexities in how people understand accountability.

“We found that people consistently perceive antisocial (that is, harmful or morally bad) behavior to be less genetically influenced than prosocial (that is, helpful or morally good) behavior,” Lebowitz told PsyPost. “It seems that in large part, this is because people perceive prosocial or virtuous behavior to be more “natural” than antisocial or immoral behavior, and genetic causation is linked with naturalness in people’s minds.”

“The pattern of results that we observed mirrors one that we have seen across many different studies published in many different papers, so we think it’s pretty safe to conclude that it’s a real phenomenon. And it suggests that as we increasingly understand the influence of genes on behavior, it will be important to consider the ways in which people’s evaluative judgments might influence how this understanding is received by the public. Regardless of what the science says, people might be more inclined to believe that genes influence some kinds of behavior more than other kinds.”

The study, like all research, has some caveats. It relied on a single pair of behavioral descriptions—one prosocial and one antisocial—which may not capture the full range of morally relevant behavior. The vignettes also used general descriptions of personality traits rather than specific actions, which might affect how participants interpreted the scenarios. Additionally, the study focused only on race and gender, and future research could examine how other demographic characteristics, such as age or socioeconomic status, affect genetic attributions.

There are also some unanswered questions about why behavior described as coming from a Black man was seen as less genetically influenced. The study was not designed to fully explain this pattern, and the authors encourage further research to explore whether it reflects underlying biases, cultural beliefs, or other factors.

The study, “Beliefs about genetic influences on prosocial and antisocial behavior in a U.S. sample,” was authored by Matthew S. Lebowitz, Baoyi Shi, Kathryn Tabb, Paul S. Appelbaum, and Linda Valeri.