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. 2023 Mar;53 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S2-S49.
doi: 10.1002/hast.1477.

Wrestling with Social and Behavioral Genomics: Risks, Potential Benefits, and Ethical Responsibility

Michelle N Meyer, Paul S Appelbaum, Daniel J Benjamin, Shawneequa L Callier, Nathaniel Comfort, Dalton Conley, Jeremy Freese, Nanibaa' A Garrison, Evelynn M Hammonds, K Paige Harden, Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Alicia R Martin, Daphne Oluwaseun Martschenko, Benjamin M Neale, Rohan H C Palmer, James Tabery, Eric Turkheimer, Patrick Turley, Erik Parens

Wrestling with Social and Behavioral Genomics: Risks, Potential Benefits, and Ethical Responsibility

Michelle N Meyer et al. Hastings Cent Rep. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often-ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science-including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes-can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of responsible behavior in the context of SBG research. SBG research that compares individuals within a group according to a "sensitive" phenotype requires extra attention to responsible conduct and to responsible communication about the research and its findings. SBG research (1) on sensitive phenotypes that (2) compares two or more groups defined by (a) race, (b) ethnicity, or (c) genetic ancestry (where genetic ancestry could easily be misunderstood as race or ethnicity) requires a compelling justification to be conducted, funded, or published. All authors agree that this justification at least requires a convincing argument that a study's design could yield scientifically valid results; some authors would additionally require the study to have a socially favorable risk-benefit profile.

Keywords: behavioral genetics; bioethics; polygenic index; polygenic risk score; research ethics; sociogenomics.

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References

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    1. Roughly the same field has been described elsewhere as “genoeconomics” (Benjamin DJ et al. , “The Promises and Pitfalls of Genoeconomics,” Annual Review of Economics 4, no. 1 [September 1, 2012]: 627–62); “social genomics” (D. Conley and J. Fletcher, The Genome Factor: What the Social Genomics Revolution Reveals about Ourselves, Our History, and the Future [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017]); “sociogenomics” (C. Bliss, Social by Nature: The Promise and Peril of Sociogenomics [Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2018]); “social science genomics” (A. Angers et al., Genome-Wide Association Studies, Polygenic Scores, and Social Science Genetics: Overview and Policy Implications [Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2019]). In our multidisciplinary project, we preferred to use a term that is not limited to a single discipline (e.g., “genoeconomics”) and that does not imply a limitation to either social or behavioral phenotypes. - PMC - PubMed
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    1. We are using PGI, following an observation from legal scholar Martha Minow that “score” may connote a judgment or valence that is not necessarily intended in social and behavioral phenotypes. See the Box in: Becker J et al. , “Resource Profile and User Guide of the Polygenic Index Repository,” Nature Human Behavior 5, no. 12 (2021): 1744–58. - PMC - PubMed
    1. For an earlier effort at a similar sort of wrestling, see Parens E, Chapman A, and Press N, eds., Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) and E. Parens, “Genetic Differences and Human Identities: Why Talking about Behavioral Genetics Is Important and Difficult,” Hastings Center Report 34, no. 1 (2004): S1-S36.

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