Motivations for Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing: Understanding Interpretations of Ancestry Results

Abstract Direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTCGT) has the potential to significantly impact racial and ethnic identities as well as social concepts of race and ethnicity. Prior literature challenges the binary choice of essentialism vs. constructionism in understanding consumers’ interpretations of genetic ancestry results. Largely focusing on differences by race and ethnicity, this research finds that test takers selectively apply genetically determinist logic depending on their prior identities and interests. We extend this line of inquiry using in-depth interviews with thirty-six mostly white participants who had previously taken a DTCGT offering combined health and ancestry results, which provided an opportunity to explore how different motivations for testing – e.g., for health or ancestry information – impact interpretations of ancestry results. Our analysis reveals distinct patterns in how health- vs. ancestry-motivated consumers invoke genetic determinism in their interpretations of DTCGT results. At the same time, regardless of motivation for testing, we found little use of genetic results to challenge the coherence or biological basis of racial or ethnic categories. Our results suggest that even if genetic determinism is only selectively applied, and in ways that vary between consumers with different motivations for testing, at least among whites, discourses of genetics as “truth” and white normativity are nonetheless the prevailing interpretive frameworks for genetic ancestry results.