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Gene×Environment Interactions in Early Externalizing Behaviors: Parental Emotional Support and Socioeconomic Context as Moderators of Genetic Influences?

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Abstract

This study uses longitudinal population-based samples of young siblings to examine the effects of two hypothesized moderators of early externalizing behaviors: parental emotional support and family socioeconomic status. The first sample, a twin sample from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), was composed of approximately 600 twin pairs measured on externalizing at ages 4 and 5. Results indicated stronger genetic influences on externalizing at lower levels of parental emotional support but higher levels of socioeconomic status; only the latter interaction remained significant when the two moderators were simultaneously modeled. These moderation effects were not replicated in our analyses of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (CNLSY) data, which contained 1939 pairs of full and half siblings measured on externalizing at ages 4–5 and ages 6–7. Our results highlight the need for replication in quantitative behavior genetics research on externalizing behaviors. Potential causes for non-replication are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Sample size of the ECLS-B twin sample is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 50 due to ECLS-B requirements.

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article is supported by National Institutes of Health grant R21 HD069772 to Elliot M. Tucker-Drob. The Population Research Center is supported by National institutes of Health Center Grant R24 HD042849. The ECLS-B data file is provided by the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics while the CNLSY public-use date file is provided by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. The NLSY kinship links were provided by Dr. Joe Rodgers, Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma. The creation of the links occurred through the support of Research Grants from NIH/NICHD on which Dr. Rodgers was PI. Others who wish to use the NLSY kinship links can obtain copies of these kinship links by writing to Dr. Rodgers at jrodgers@ou.edu. The NLSY kinship links are also available in an R package at https://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/nlsylinks/.

Conflict of Interest

Amanda K. Cheung, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 108 E. Dean Keeton Street A8000, Austin, TX, 78712-0187, USA

    Amanda K. Cheung, Kathryn Paige Harden & Elliot M. Tucker-Drob

  2. Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Kathryn Paige Harden & Elliot M. Tucker-Drob

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  1. Amanda K. Cheung
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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 51 kb)   Amanda K. Cheung, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob declare that they have no conflict of interest. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Cheung, A.K., Harden, K.P. & Tucker-Drob, E.M. Gene×Environment Interactions in Early Externalizing Behaviors: Parental Emotional Support and Socioeconomic Context as Moderators of Genetic Influences?. Behav Genet 44, 468–486 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-014-9664-8

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