According to a new study by researchers in the U.S., your popularity and social skills may weigh heavily on your own genes, so one should stop striving too much to get under everybody’s skin. The new study was carried out by Nicholas Christakis from Harvard and James Fowler at the University of California San Diego.

They studied 1,110 twins some identical and the rest fraternal in a population of more than 90,000 adults. They measured indications of popularity such as the number of times an individual was named as a friend, as well as indicators like if a person tended to be at the centre or edge of a social group.

They also found that the social network of the identical twins were more similar than siblings of fraternal twin sets, leading them to conclude that the preference of friends was rooted strongly in genetics.

"One of the things that the study tells us is that social networks are likely to be a fundamental part of our genetic heritage. It may be that natural selection is acting on not just things like whether or not we can resist the common cold, but also who it is that we are going to come into contact with," Fowler said.

In other words they believe there could be an evolutionary explanation for a genetic influence on people's position in a network of friends. Writing in the journal, they suggest that someone on the edges of a community would be less likely to pick up infectious diseases from others. Meanwhile, someone at the centre of a group might benefit by getting more information than those on the periphery.

The researchers reported one finding that was surprising being that an individual's genetic makeup can influence the behavior of other's. "My genes can influence the probability that two of my friends will become friends of each other," Fowler said. The researchers said the finding may not help us change the way we are genetically but this "can help us make sharper predictions about which experiences you have will have the sharpest impact on what social interactions you have."

In other studies, Fowler and his colleagues have shown that nicotine addiction and obesity can ripple through social groups like plagues. We are influenced in such lifestyle choices by people we've never met—friends of friends up to three degrees of separation away. Happiness and smoking cessation can spread the same way.

The study didn’t sort out which genes are enhancing or ruining our social lives. Michigan State University research published last year showed that a mutation in the serotonin receptor gene 5-HT2A was linked to variation in popularity. (Serotonin is a brain chemical that regulates mood, anxiety, depression, sleep and sexuality.) The new study examines the genetics of popularity with a wider lens, examining how much DNA may shape the way we socialize.