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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

More educated people tend to be lower in Right-Wing Authoritarianism. But why? Causal effects of education are hard to distinguish from confounding by family environments and genes.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Perceived childhood SES explained some of the shared-environmental confounding, but not most of it. We also found no evidence that the education–RWA association is mediated by perceived SES in adulthood.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

This suggest that the education–authoritarianism association is partly causal, but mostly reflects genetic and shared environmental confounding:

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

But the twin model suggests that much of this covariance reflects confounding. We estimate that 25% reflects genetic confounders, 47% reflects shared-environmental confounders, and 28% remains unaccounted for.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Educational attainment and RWA were substantially negatively correlated, r = −.46:

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

The key logic is this: if twins differ in education, does the twin with more education also tend to be lower in RWA? Since twins are matched on rearing environment, and identical twins are also matched on genes, this design help control for confounding.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

In our recent PSPB paper, led by Nikolai Eftedal, we address this using the discordant twin design in a structural equation framework.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

More educated people tend to be lower in Right-Wing Authoritarianism. But why? Causal effects of education are hard to distinguish from confounding by family environments and genes.

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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We have a new paper out in EHB proposing a theory on how human intelligence evolved, led by our talented philosopher-turned-psychology-PhD-candidate @jonathanegeland.bsky.social!

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We also do some conceptual housekeeping. We clarify the difference between human intelligence as reflecting evolved mechanisms and the psychometric entity of g: factor analytic structure shouldn’t be mistaken for the mind’s functional architecture.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We argue that intelligence is adaptive in novel environments--not because it is a 'novelty adaptation', but because it functions as an honest, status-enhancing signal of coalitional value in such environments.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

The theory is in line with several key findings in the intelligence literature, such as intelligence predicting status and leadership cross-culturally, and that people are surprisingly accurate at estimating intelligence levels of others.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We derive several predictions from the theory:

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

That is, smart individuals provide cognitive-computational services that help members of the group to flourish, which is rewarded with prestige and status. A form of social exchange.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We propose the coalitional intelligence hypothesis (CiH): behavioral outputs of intelligence (e.g., solving collective action problems) function as honest signals of coalitional value.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Humans form large stable coalitions with many non-kin individuals. How is this cooperation possible? A key part of how it works concerns prestige: Humans often grant influence by voluntarily deferring to individuals that are valuable to the group.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Why did humans evolve such extreme levels of intelligence? Many theories propose social aspects, but we try to specify the concrete mechanism.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

We have a new paper out in EHB proposing a theory on how human intelligence evolved, led by our talented philosopher-turned-psychology-PhD-candidate @jonathanegeland.bsky.social!

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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Jonathan Egeland @jonathanegeland.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

In our new Evolution and Human Behavior paper, we examine the social function of uniquely human intelligence 🧠 Give it a read! sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Thanks to my coauthors: Leif Kennair and @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social

sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

New paper out in Evolution & Human Behavior! Do people agree on what the ideal partner personality looks like, or is it just a reflection of their own traits? And do people care more about politics than the big five? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Fartein Ask Torvik @torvik.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Who wants to join us in Oslo to study how health influences educational underperformance? We are hiring PhDs postdocs candidates for our funded project. We will follow children from birth to emerging adulthood, using behavioural genetic methods and large datasets 945000.webcruiter.no/Main/Recruit...

945000.webcruiter.no

Two positions as either PhD or postdoctoral fellow on health determinants of education

Do you want to research how health influences school performance and leads to intergenerational inequality? We have two vacant 3-year positions as a PhD fellow or postdoctoral research fellow in the p...

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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Per Helge H. Larsen @phlarsen.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

"These findings suggest that ideal partner preferences are shaped by one's own traits, especially for political personality, but some traits (e.g., low neuroticism) are broadly preferred across individuals." doi.org/10.1016/j.ev...

sciencedirect.com

The attractive personality: Like me, but better

People tend to prefer mates who are similar to themselves, yet also desire partners with specific characteristics. The relative importance of assortat…

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

I want to thank my coauthors that made important contributions: Mons Bendixen; @hfsunde.bsky.social; Brendan Zietsch; Kaitlyn T. Harper; Håvard Karlsen; Marius Stavang; Nikolai H. Eftedal & Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair!

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

In sum, we want partners who resemble us - few mate preferences are objective. But people also desire certain trait levels that most people consider attractive. Political personality is where similarity matters most, and neuroticism is where aspiration matters most.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Moreover, preferences don't always match what is available. For instance, women prefer men who are more agreeable than men tend to be, but men's agreeableness preferences match the average woman.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Here are some sex-differentiated ridgeplots of self and ideal distributions at the facet level of the big five:

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

But both men and women want partners who are more emotionally stable than themselves. This was the largest gap in the study, the strongest “aspirational” effect (d = 1.46). The diagonal line here represents perfect alignment between self and ideal trait values:

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

We asked NTNU students to rate their own big five and political personality (social dominance orientation), as well as their ideal partner’s. People tend to prefer partners similar to themselves, especially on political personality:

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

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Reposted by Thomas H. Kleppestø

Dr Elsje van Bergen @drelsje.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

👉Behaviour genetics infographics www.nature.com/articles/s41... 👉ADHD, dyslexia & dyscalculia doi.org/10.1177/0956... 👉ADHD runs in families doi.org/10.1017/S003... 👉Education runs in families osf.io/preprints/ps... Hosted warmly at @citystgeorges.bsky.social by Ansgar Endress & Katrina May Dulay 🙏

nature.com

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions - npj Science of Learning

npj Science of Learning - Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

We have a new paper out, led by the great @hfsunde.bsky.social! We find that the correlation between parental income and offspring mental disorders may be partly causal in adolescence (phenotypic transmission), but that it is largely explained by passive genetic transmission in adulthood.

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

For Norwegian followers: Ett utvalg av mine forelesninger om personlighetspsykologi er nå tilgjengelig på YT for studenter og andre personlighetsinteresserte. Her er for eksempel en med biografisk perspektiv med fokus på Darwin & Munch: t.co/DVt5O7Q0ih

t.co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deAMNHpfKKM&list=PL7LQmm1abBNx30wv7_Gb0Yyi2mmRu9K6Z&index=4&ab_channel=Baktanke

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

We have a new paper out in Psychological Science. The risk for (any) mental disorder decreases dramatically as cognitive ability increases–even when controlling for within-family variation. Check out lead author @magnusnordmo.bsky.social thread below for details!

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Thomas H. Kleppestø @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

New paper on family resemblance in school performance! We find that a model with only additive genetics and assortative mating fits the data well, but underestimates the resemblance of close relatives and adoptees, indicating some shared environmental effects. See @eivindy.bsky.social thread!

pnas.org

Beyond additive genetic effects: Explaining family resemblance in school performance across millions of pairs of Norwegian relatives | PNAS

We investigate the hypothesis that family resemblance on school performance can be fully explained by additive genetic effects and assortative mati...

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