When?

Tuesday, November 13 2012 at 7:30PM

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Where?

The Admiral

72a Waterloo Street

Who?

Dr Gary Lewis

What's the talk about?

Social and political attitudes are strikingly variable between individuals. Some value ethnic diversity, while others believe that non-indigenous individuals should be repatriated to their land of origin. And while some feel religion ought to play no role in government, others strongly advocate God’s law as national law.

Research exploring why individuals differ in such attitudes has almost exclusively focused on environmental influences (e.g. upbringing, education). To the surprise of many, however, recent evidence implicates a role for genetic factors. The talk will introduce this behaviour genetic approach for understanding origins of social and political attitudes and explore some of the key insights and controversies in this emerging field.

Dr Gary Lewis received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2011, following up with a SAGE Junior Fellowship at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2011-12). Currently a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Stirling and Honorary Lecturer in Genetic Epidemiology at at Kings College, London, his interests lie in the origins of social, moral, and political attitudes, largely from a genetic and neuroimaging perspective.