Top

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

Gepubliceerd in:

01-10-2007

Environmental Contributions to Adolescent Delinquency: A Fresh Look at the Shared Environment

Auteurs: S. Alexandra Burt, Matt McGue, Robert F. Krueger, William G. Iacono

Gepubliceerd in: Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology | Uitgave 5/2007

Abstract

Few genetically-informative studies have attempted to explicitly identify the shared environmental (i.e., those environmental influences that contribute to sibling similarity) factors now known to contribute to adolescent delinquency. The current study therefore examined whether the parent–child relationship served as one source of these shared environmental influences. Participants were 610 adoptive and biological families from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS). Parents and adolescents reported on their parent–child conflict and parental involvement with child, and adolescents reported on their own delinquent behaviors. We employed structural equation modeling and supplementary multilevel modeling, finding consistent evidence that the association between delinquency and the parent–child relationship is at least partially shared environmental in origin. Such findings provide an important extension of previous twin studies, as they suggest that passive genotype-environment correlations do not explain earlier findings of shared environmental influences on this association.

vorige artikel Can a Laboratory Measure of Emotional Processing Enhance the Statistical Prediction of Aggression and Delinquency in Detained Adolescents with Callous-unemotional Traits?

volgende artikel Racial/Ethnic Differences in Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Adolescents

When inspecting the tabled results, the adoptive correlations for father-reported conflict and involvement appeared somewhat larger than the non-adoptive correlations. Although neither of these differences reached statistical significance (both p = 0.06), one possible interpretation of this pattern is that not sharing genes somehow serves to enhance the association. However, there is no evidence to support such an interpretation in the literature.

To examine the robustness of these results, phenotypic correlations were reexamined within A/B pairs. As the same parents are reporting on both their biological and their adoptive parent–child relationship, these analyses enable us to better control for parental characteristics. For adoptive and biological children, respectively, adolescent-reported delinquency was correlated 0.16 and 0.10 with mother-reported conflict, 0.22 and 0.07 with father-reported conflict, −0.32 and −0.20 with mother-reported involvement, and 0.02 and 0.00 with father-reported involvement. As correlations for biological children again failed to supersede those for their adopted siblings, these results argue strongly against the presence of passive gene-environment correlations.

Fixing a32 to zero in the full model shifts the primary source of genetic influences on delinquency to path a33. This is the case because A2 is solely composed of the genetic influences on delinquency (path a22 is essentially zero). Thus, the genetic influences on delinquency remain marginally significant.

Though a thorough examination of informant-effects is beyond the scope of the present study, we repeated analyses examining whether parent-reports of involvement and conflict contributed to adolescent delinquency above the contributions of adolescent-reports. Only father-report of involvement did not independently contribute, suggesting that results are not a function of shared method variance.

Burt, S. A., Krueger, R., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. (2003). Parent–child conflict and the comorbidity among childhood externalizing disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 505–513.PubMedCrossRef

Burt, S. A., Krueger, R., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. (2001). Sources of covariation among ADHD, CD, and ODD: The importance of shared environment. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 516–525.PubMedCrossRef

Burt, S. A., McGue, M., Krueger, R., & Iacono, W. (2005). How are parent–child conflict and childhood externalizing symptoms related over time? Results from a genetically-informative cross-lagged study. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 145–165.PubMedCrossRef

Burt, S. A., McGue, M., Krueger, R. F., & Iacono, W. G. (2006). Differential parent–child relationships and adolescent externalizing symptoms: Cross-lagged analyses within a discordant twin design. Developmental Psychology, 42, 1289–1298.PubMedCrossRef

Bussell, D. A., Neiderhiser, J. M., Pike, A., Plomin, R., Simmens, S., Howe, G. W. et al. (1999). Adolescents’ relationships to siblings and mothers: A multivariate genetic analysis. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1248–1259.PubMedCrossRef

Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J., Craig, I. W. et al. (2002). Role of violence in maltreated children. Science, 297, 851–854.PubMedCrossRef

Deater-Deckard, K., & Plomin, R. (1999). An adoption study of the etiology of teacher and parent reports of externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood. Child Development, 70, 144–154.PubMedCrossRef

Eaves, L. J., Silberg, J. L., Meyers, J. M., Maes, H. H., Simonoff, E., Pickles, A. et al. (1997). Genetics and developmental psychopathology: 2. The main effects of genes and environment on behavioral problems in the Virginia twin study of adolescent development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 965–980.PubMedCrossRef

Elkins, I. J., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. G. (1997). Genetic and environmental influences on parent–son relationships: Evidence for increasing genetic influence during adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 33, 351–363.PubMedCrossRef

Farrington, D. P. & West, D. J. (1971). A comparison between early delinquents and young aggressives. British Journal of Criminology, 11, 341–358.

Forgatch, M. S., & DeGarmo, D. S. (1999). Parenting through change: An effective prevention program for single mothers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67, 711–724.PubMedCrossRef

Gibson, H. B. (1967). Self-report delinquency among school boys and their attitudes towards police. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20, 303–315.

Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way the do. New York: Free.

Littell, R. C., Milliken, G. A., Stroup, W. W., & Wolfinger, R. D. (1996). SAS system for mixed models. Cary, NC: SAS Institute.

Lyons, M. J., True, W. R., Eisen, S. A., Goldberg, J., Meyer, J. M., Faraone, S. V. et al. (1995). Differential heritability of adult and juvenile antisocial traits. Archives of General Psychiatry, 52, 906–915.PubMed

McGue, M., & Bouchard, T. J., Jr. (1998). Genetic and environmental influences on human differences. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 21, 1–24.PubMedCrossRef

McGue, M., Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Iacono, W. G., & Lykken, D. T. (1993). Behavior genetics of cognitive ability: A life-span perspective. In R. Plomin & G.E. McClearn (Eds.), Nature, nuture, and psychology. Washingon, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

McGue, M., Elkins, I., Walden, B., & Iacono, W. G. (2005). Perceptions of the parent–adolescent relationship: A longitudinal investigation. Developmental Psychology, 41, 971–984.PubMedCrossRef

McGue, M., Keyes, M., Sharma, A., Elkins, I., Legrand, L., Johnson, W., et al. (2007). The environment of adopted and non-adopted youth: Evidence of range restriction from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS). Behavioral Genetics, 37(3), 449–462.CrossRef

McGue, M., Sharma, A., & Benson, P. (1996). The effect of common rearing on adolescent adjustment: Evidence from a U.S. adoption cohort. Developmental Psychology, 32, 604–613.CrossRef

Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100, 674–701.PubMedCrossRef

Moffitt, T. E. (2003). Life-course persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial behaviour: A research review and a research agenda. In B. Lahey, T.E. Moffitt, & A.Caspi (Eds.), The causes of conduct disorder and serious juvenile delinquency. New York: Guilford.

Neale, M. C. (1997). Mx: Statistical modeling (4th ed.). Richmond, VA: Department of Psychiatry.

Neale, M. C. (1999). Possible confounds and their resolution in multivariate genetic analyses: Comment on Bussell et al. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1260–1264.PubMedCrossRef

Neiderhiser, J. M., Reiss, D., Pedersen, N. L., Lichtenstein, P., Spotts, E. L, Hansson, K. et al. (2004). Genetic and Environmental Influences on Mothering of Adolescents: A Comparison of Two Samples. Developmental Psychology, 40, 335–351.PubMedCrossRef

O’Connor, T. G., McGuire, S., Reiss, D., Hetherington, E. M., & Plomin, R. (1998). Co-occurrence of depressive symptoms and antisocial behavior in adolescence: A common genetic liability. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107, 27–37.PubMedCrossRef

Pike, A., McGuire, S., Hetherington, E. M., Reiss, D., & Plomin, R. (1996). Family environment and adolescent depressive symptoms and antisocial behavior: A multivariate genetic analysis. Developmental Psychology, 32, 590–603.CrossRef

Plomin, R. (1995). Genetics and children’s experiences in the family. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 36, 33–68.PubMedCrossRef

Plomin, R., & Daniels, D. (1987). Why are children in the same family so different from one another? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 1–60.CrossRef

Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & Loehlin, J. C. (1977). Genotype-environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of human behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 309–322.PubMedCrossRef

Raftery, A. E. (1995). Bayesian model selection in social research. Sociological Methodology, 25, 111–163.CrossRef

Reiss, D., Hetherington, M., Plomin, R., Howe, G. W., Simmens, S. J., Henderson, S. H. et al. (1995). Genetic questions for environmental studies. Archives of General Psychiatry, 52, 925–936.PubMed

Rhee, S., & Waldman, I. D. (2002). Genetic and environmental influences on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 490–529.PubMedCrossRef

Rutter, M., Pickles, A., Murray, R., & Eaves, L. (2001). Testing hypotheses on specific environmental causal effects on behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 291–324.PubMedCrossRef

Rutter, M., Silberg, J., O’Connor, T., & Simonoff, E. (1999). Genetics and child psychiatry: I Advances in quantitative and molecular genetics. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 3–18.PubMedCrossRef

Silberg, J., Rutter, M., Meyer, J., Maes, H., Hewitt, J., Simonoff, E. et al. (1996). Genetic and environmental influences on the covariation between hyperactivity and conduct disturbance in juvenile twins. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37, 803–816.PubMedCrossRef

Snijders, T., & Bosker, R. (1999). Multilevel analysis: An introduction to basic and advanced multilevel modeling. London: Sage.

Stoolmiller, M. (1998). Correcting estimates of share environmental variance for range restriction in adoption studies using a truncated multivariate normal model. Behavior Genetics, 28, 429–441.PubMedCrossRef

Thapar, A., Harrington, R., & McGuffin, P. (2001). Examining the comorbidity of ADHD-related behaviors and conduct problems using a twin study design. British Journal of Psychiatry, 179, 224–229.PubMedCrossRef

Turkheimer, E., & Waldron, M. (2000). Nonshared environment: A theoretical, methodological, and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 78–108.PubMedCrossRef

van der Valk, J. C., van den Oord, E., Verhulst, F. C., & Boomsma, D. I. (2001). Using parental ratings to study the etiology of 3 year-old twins’ problem behavior: Different views or rater bias? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 921–931.PubMedCrossRef

Waschbusch, D. A. (2002). A meta-analytic examination of comorbid hyperactive-impulsive-attention problems and conduct problems. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 118–150.PubMedCrossRef

Titel: Environmental Contributions to Adolescent Delinquency: A Fresh Look at the Shared Environment
Auteurs: S. Alexandra Burt
Matt McGue
Robert F. Krueger
William G. Iacono
Publicatiedatum: 01-10-2007
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology / Uitgave 5/2007
Print ISSN: 2730-7166
Elektronisch ISSN: 2730-7174
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-007-9135-2

Bohn Stafleu van Loghum

Deel dit onderdeel of sectie (kopieer de link)

Abstract

Log in om toegang te krijgen

Andere artikelen Uitgave 5/2007

Early-occurring Maternal Depression and Maternal Negativity in Predicting Young Children’s Emotion Regulation and Socioemotional Difficulties

Maternal Depressive Symptomatology and Parenting Behavior: Exploration of Possible Mediators

Risk Factors for Boy’s Conduct Problems in Poor and Lower–middle-class Neighborhoods

Sequelae of Aggression in Acutely Suicidal Adolescents

Neurocognitive Functioning in AD/HD, Predominantly Inattentive and Combined Subtypes

Autism, Attachment and Parenting: A Comparison of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mental Retardation, Language Disorder, and Non-clinical Children