Citation

Liu J, Gong P, Zhou X. Sci. Rep. 2014; 4: 7049.

Affiliation

1] Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [2] Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [3] PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/srep07049

PMID

25412229

Abstract

What factors determine whether or not a young adult will fall in love? Sociological surveys and psychological studies have shown that non-genetic factors, such as socioeconomic status, external appearance, and personality attributes, are crucial components in romantic relationship formation. Here we demonstrate that genetic variants also contribute to romantic relationship formation. As love-related behaviors are associated with serotonin levels in the brain, this study investigated to what extent a polymorphism (C-1019G, rs6295) of 5-HT1A gene is related to relationship status in 579 Chinese Han people. We found that 50.4% of individuals with the CC genotype and 39.0% with CG/GG genotype were in romantic relationship. Logistic regression analysis indicated that the C-1019G polymorphism was significantly associated with the odds of being single both before and after controlling for socioeconomic status, external appearance, religious beliefs, parenting style, and depressive symptoms. These findings provide, for the first time, direct evidence for the genetic contribution to romantic relationship formation.

Language: en