Genetic susceptibility to parenting style: DRD2 and COMT influence creativity

Abstract The present study systematically investigated if genetic variations in the DRD2 and COMT interacted with parenting style to predict individual differences in creativity. In a sample of young adults, we first examined the interaction of each individual polymorphism and parenting style on creativity. Then, we aggregated the contribution of these susceptibility polymorphisms into a Cumulative Genetic Score (CGS) which combines the plasticity conferred by two or more single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of DRD2 and COMT into a single score. When polymorphisms were examined in isolation, the results indicated there were only two polymorphisms from COMT (rs5993882 and rs5993883), which were found to interact with mother authoritativeness to predict creativity. However, a CGS comprising of several potential susceptibility polymorphisms from DRD2 and COMT genes did indeed interact with parenting style to explain a significant amount of variance in the creativity. Furthermore, the analysis of regions of significance (Ros) showed supporting evidences for differential susceptibility model, such that the individuals with high CGS were more likely to be affected by their both negative and positive parenting style, demonstrating higher and lower creativity. These results further provide evidence for the involvement of dopaminergic genes in the relationship between parenting style and creativity and suggest individuals with the greater susceptibility are the ones who are more susceptible to environmental influences.