Heritability Of Trust And Distrust Remains Unknown

In “Trust is heritable, whereas distrust is not,” Reimann et al. (1) analyze data from monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins and conclude that “the disposition to trust is explained to some extent by heritability but not by shared socialization, [whereas] the disposition to distrust is explained by shared socialization but not by heritability.” We believe that the evidence does not justify either inference.As illustrated by the title of the article (1), the study claims to demonstrate that heredity has no effect on distrust. This claim confuses a lack of evidence for an effect with confirmation that no effect exists. The study’s data show only that one should not reject the null hypothesis that distrust … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: andrew.a.king{at}tuck.dartmouth.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1