Effect of Genetic predispositions, Caregiving propensities and Culture on In-person and Online Social Attitudes

Humans are inherently social creatures. Affiliative and social behaviours evolutionarily facilitate cooperation with the conspecifics to increase adaptation and ensure the species’ survival. Nature and nurture have a programming effect on the trajectories of human social development. Specifically, genetic and environmental mechanisms shape social bonds from infancy to adulthood. Early caregiving also has a pivotal role in social development among the early environmental influences. Sensitive caregivers respond efficaciously to an infant’s physiological and affective needs and promote a high-quality parent-infant relationship. A secure and positive attachment in childhood has a longitudinal impact on adult relationships. Within the genetic and epigenetic frameworks, research points to the implication of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene (OXTR) and the Serotonin Transporter Gene in moderating caregivers’ influences over social behaviour. However, how such factors are involved in dynamic interaction to forge social bonds is almost undefined. The current research probes if early caregiving, adult attachment, genetic predispositions and cultural factors can predict adult sociability. This multidisciplinary and cross-cultural project covers the topic of over nine studies that explore the intersection among genes, culture, neural correlates, caregiving behaviour, affiliative propensities and in-person and online social behaviour. More precisely, the current work is a compendium of three pieces of research that target the effect of OXTR polymorphisms and parental bonding or adult attachment on adult social attitudes. In a first study, we investigated the effects of the genetic susceptibility of OXTR rs53576 and early parental bonding on the levels of anxiety and avoidance experienced in romantic relationships across two different cultural contexts, namely Italy and Singapore. In a second study, we inspected the effects of the genetic variations of OXTR (rs53576; rs2254298) and caregiving propensities on the levels of online sociability on a social network site, such as Instagram, in a cultural context highly sensitive to technologies. In a third study, we explored the effects of the same genetic factors and adult attachment dimensions from romantic relationships on the frequency of Instagram sociability in the same cultural context. Related and secondary studies of the research project are cited and briefly discussed. In the field of developmental psychobiology, the results fit a) the Prototype Hypothesis, which assumes that infant attachment representations are reproduced in adult social relationships; and b) the Differential- Susceptibility and Resilience Hypothesis which postulated the difference between plastic genes more susceptible to environmental modifications and non-plastic genes highly resilient to adverse conditions. Considering the overall findings and starting from the Bioecological Model of development, a theoretical model is advanced to integrate the numerous predictors of social behaviour into a coherent architecture. Whereas cultural and genetic mechanisms are mainly fixed, early caregiving adjusts the long-term trajectory of social development. Moreover, in-person peer and close relationships, as well as online user-to-user relationships are not merely developmental outcomes. They are also social regulators that can adjust to the social responses in adult life.