Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - According to a new study by researchers in the U.S., your popularity and social skills may weigh heavily on your own genes.

The new study was carried out by Nicholas Christakis from Harvard and James Fowler at the University of California San Diego.

The study focused on roughly 1,000 fraternal and identical twins.

The belief behind it was to compare the social networks of these twins.

Overall, fraternal twins share half of the same genes, while identical twins have the same make-up.

What they found was that the preference of friends and social circles weighed heavily on genetics.

This means that your genes can help decide if you will be popular among friends, who you hang out with, etc.

The study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.