If you find yourself with an itch to travel, you might have more in common with early migrants than just wanderlust. Standford University geneticists have identified a gene that could explain why early man left his farming communities to explore the world, why Americans are natural capitalists and perhaps even why you can’t wait for your next trip abroad (and why some people have no interest in leaving home at all).
Risky and Novelty-seeking behavior
The logic is as follows. Scientists have found a gene that is attributed to risky and novelty-seeking behaviors. When looking at the genetic profiles of the earliest migrants, the ones that left the African savannahs and started man’s journey to colonize the world, they found they had a high percentage of this shared gene. When looking at those who stayed behind, they had a much lower percentage of the gene. So over time, those who left, were naturally self-selecting themselves as born-travelers, and would produce children with people that shared this same genetic profile. Their children were more likely to carry it, and so on.
So are travelers just the great, great (x1000) grandchildren of early nomads? Is the reason some people are perfectly content to never see the world more about their DNA than their life experiences?
Risk-takers and Immigrant populations
In this Princeton book, the author goes a step further to suggest in highly immigrant populations, you have a higher concentration of the wanderlust gene. It makes you willing to take risks, but it also pushes you to try new things. This lends itself nicely to capitalistic societies, where risk and new ideas are rewarded and encouraged. While I’m sure there are many more factors to world economies than a single gene, it does make me wonder… are people from certain countries more likely to travel? Is it purely an economical equation or is there something inherent in our DNA that pushes out the door?
What do you think? Could there be a traveling gene?
Thanks to Expat Expression who first covered this topic
Photo: Spr Msh
August 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I don’t know if I buy the explanatory premise these scientists are forwarding; it seems like a very privileged sort of perspective. Many people weren’t necessarily inherent risk-takers– economic necessities and political realities have always compelled people to migrate. Though people who migrate certainly seem to develop traits of resilience that might otherwise be latent, I definitely need some persuading to buy the traveling gene argument!
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August 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Hi Julie,
I agree with your point on a micro level, but I think they are referring more to the changes over several thousand years. Even within communities with economic and political incentives to leave, only a fraction do… over time, what is the difference between those who stay and those who leave?
Anyway, it’s fascinating to me, the entire field of genetic study, as there is little we know. Even the scientists at Stanford can’t possible understand all the ways people are influenced. But if there is a travel gene, I definitely have it.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Hi Christine, I think both arguments can be true.
I’ve always thought about this.. coming from any country in the Americas (in my case Brazil), we do have something in our genes inherited from the navigators that “discovered” our continent in the 15th century.. and all the immigration we had later, from several different countries in the world, they were very brave people, throwing themselves to the unknown.. this thing must remain in our blood somehow.
But the economical situation can also be decisive. For individual cases, it can be the lack of money or the fear of loosing security, stability. In the case of a country being capitalist/wealthy or not, the economical situation can be reflected in several other social and cultural reasons that stop people from travelling more.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
I think we like to simplify science down a lot (especially in books that publishers are trying to sell to a lay audience) and say that there is “a gene” for this or that, when usually it’s actually a whole lot of genes or proteins that all act in combination to produce one type of result and that sometimes that “result” only happens when it’s stimulated by environmental forces. I think a desire to travel (or the reverse desire to stay at home) has some sort of genetic basis in so much as it’s a part of our personality, but determining how much of personality is nature and how much is nurture is one of those ongoing issues that no one can quite seem to parse out.
Theresas last blog post..A Night at the Ballpark
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 am
Y’know, I dunno if there is a traveling gene, but when you start traveling internationally from age two and you take a road trip from Orlando to Tegucigalpa, Honduras when your five and spend one month in California when your eight and get to travel to Europe with your mother for two weeks when your 14, I guess it only comes naturally to me to leave for two months to a part of the world no one in the family has ever gone
Thanks mom!
Antoninis last blog post..Sabotage Two Weeks Before Takeoff
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
This travel gene theory plays nicely into my own highly unscientific theory that there are so many mealy-skinny people in France (and Europe) as compared to the US because only the tough ones left home, survived the trip over the ocean on a rough voyage and then subsequently didn’t get turned away at Ellis Island giving us a strong, resilient gene pool from which to create big, strong people. Just a thought.
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August 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
I’ve thought about this before, and definitely think it has some basis. Not just anyone will abandon their home country in search of greener pastures. The way I think about it, America was founded by two types of people: those with the itch to find something newer and better, and criminals (explains a lot, right?).
K.Raes last blog post..Alexander Wang: If you weren’t gay, I would so do you.