All in the genes dba All in the family

Still more evidence on the heritability of values and behaviors. From Genetic and Environmental Parent-Child Transmission of Value Orientations: An Extended Twin Family Study by Christian Kandler, et al

Despite cross-cultural universality of core human values, individuals differ substantially in value priorities, whereas family members show similar priorities to some degree. The latter has often been attributed to intra-familial socialization. The analysis of self-ratings on eight core values from 399 twin pairs (age: 7-11) and their biological parents (388 mothers, 249 fathers, age: 26-65) allowed the disentanglement of environmental from genetic transmission accounting for family resemblance in value orientations. Results indicated that parent-child similarity is primarily due to shared genetic makeup. The primary source of variance in value priorities represented environmental influences that are not shared by family members. These findings provide less evidence for value socialization in families contributing to intra-familial similarity in value priorities beyond genetic similarity.