Abstract
This paper follows earlier research (Rowe et al., 1992) in evaluating the basis of family influences on adolescent delinquent behavior. Delinquency is measured in a number of different ways to account for important theoretical distinctions that exist in the delinquency literature. We use recently identified kinship structure in a large national data set—the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—to estimate genetic and shared environmental influences on self-reported delinquency scores. Our analytic model is based on DF analysis, a regression procedure used to estimate parameters reflecting genetic and environmental influence. Results suggest a consistent and moderate genetic basis to sibling similarity in delinquency and little evidence of a shared environmental basis. A large amount of variance is attributable to nonshared influences and/or measurement error. Our findings suggest that the search for environmental influences on adolescent delinquency should focus on those that are not shared by siblings.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Bjornsdottir, A. (1996). Gender Differences in Mathematics: Genetic and Environmental Influences with Special Emphasis on High and Low Ability, Doctoral dissertation, University of Oklahoma, Norman.
Buster, M., and Rodgers, J. L. (2000). Genetic and environmental influences on alcohol use: DF analysis of NLSY kinship data. J. Biosoc. Sci. 32: 177–189.
Cadoret, R. J. (1978). Evidence for genetic inheritance of primary affective disorder in adoptees raised apart from alcoholic biologic relatives. Am. J. Psychiatry 133: 463–466.
Cadoret, R. J., Cain, C. A., and Crowe, R. R. (1983). Evidence for gene-environment interaction in the development of adolescent antisocial behavior. Behav. Genet. 13: 301–310.
Cherny, S. S., Cardon, L. R., Fulker, D. W., and DeFries, J. C. (1992). Differential heritability across levels of cognitive ability. Behav. Genet. 22: 153–162.
Cherny, S. S., DeFries, J. C., and Fulker, D. W. (1992). Multiple regression of twin data: A model-fitting approach. Behav. Genet. 22: 489–497.
Christiansen, K. O. (1977). A preliminary study of criminality among twins. In Mednick, S. A., and Christiansen, K. O. (eds.), Biosocial Bases of Criminal Behavior, Gardner, New York, pp. 89–108.
Cloninger, C. R., and Gottesman, I. I. (1987). Genetic and environmental factors in antisocial behavior disorders. In Mednick, S. A., Moffitt, T. E., and Stack, S. A. (eds.), The Causes of Crime: New Biological Approaches, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 92–109.
Cyphers, L. H., Phillips, K., Fulker, D. W., and Mrazek, D. A. (1990). Twin temperament during the transition from infancy to early childhood. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 29: 392–397.
Daniels, D. (1986). Differential experiences of siblings in the same family as predictors of adolescent sibling personality differences. J. Person. Soc. Psychol. 51: 339–346.
DeFries, J. C., and Fulker, D. W. (1985). Multiple regression analysis of twin data. Behav. Genet. 15: 467–473.
Elliott, D., Huizinga, D., and Ageton, S. (1985). Explaining Delinquency and Drug Use, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Fulker, D. W., Cardon, L. R., DeFries, J. C., Kimberling, W. J., Pennington, B. F., and Smith, S. D. (1991). Multiple regression analysis of sib-pair data on reading to detect quantitative trait loci. Read. Writ. Interdisc. J. 3: 299–313.
Gottesman, I. I., Carey, G., and Hanson, D. R. (1983). Pearls and perils in epigentic psychopathology. In Guze, S. B., Earls, E. J., and Barrett, J. E. (eds.), Childhood Psychopathology and Development, Raven Press, New York, pp. 287–300.
Hetherington, E. M., Reiss, D., and Plomin, R. (1994). Separate Social Worlds of Siblings: The Impact of Nonshared Environment on Development, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Hindelang, M. J., Hirschi, T., and Weiss, J. G. (1981). Measuring Delinquency, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Jaccard, J., Turrisi, R., and Choi, K. W. (1990). Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Jary, M. L., and Stewart, M. A. (1985). Psychiatric disorder in the parents of adopted children with aggressive conduct disorder. Neuropsychobiology 13: 7–11.
Krueger, R. F., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Bleske, A., and Silva, P. A. (1998). Assortative mating for antisocial behavior: Development and methodological implications. Behav. Genet. 28:173–186.
LaBuda, M. C., and DeFries, J. C. (1990). Genetic etiology of reading disability: Evidence from a twin study. In Pavlidis, G. T. (ed.), Perspectives on Dyslexia, Vol. 1, Wiley, New York.
LaBuda, M. C., DeFries, J. C., and Fulker, D. W. (1986). Multiple regression analysis of twin data obtained from selected samples. Genet. Epidemiol. 3: 425–433.
Lauritsen, J. L. (1993). Sibling resemblance in juvenile delinquency: Findings from the National Youth Survey. Criminology 31: 387–409.
Lyons, M. J., True, W. R., Eisen, S. A., Goldberg, J., Meyer, J. M., Faraone, S., Eaves, L., and Tsuang, M. T. (1995). Differential heritability of adult and juvenile antisocial traits. Arch. Genet. Psychiatry 52:906–915.
McCall, R. B. (1983). Environmental effects on intelligence: The forgotten realm of discontinuous nonshared within-family factors. Child Dev. 17: 408–415.
Neale, M. C., and Cardon, L. R. (1992). Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families, Kluwer, Boston.
Plomin, R. (1990). Genetic risk and psychosocial disorders: Links between the normal and abnormal. In Rutter, M. (ed.), Biological Risk Factors for Psychosocial Disorders, Cambridge, London.
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., and McClearn, G. E. (1990). Behavioral Genetics: A Primer, Freeman, New York.
Plomin, R., Chipuer, H. M., and Neiderhiser, J. M. (1994). Behavioral genetic evidence for the importance of nonshared environment. In Hetherington, E. M., Reiss, D., and Plomin, R. (eds.), Separate Social Worlds of Siblings: The Impact of Nonshared Environment on Development, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 1–32.
Plomin, R., and Rende, R. (1991). Human behavioral genetics. In Rosenzweig, M. R., and Porter, L. W. (eds.), Annual Review of Psychology, Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, CA.
Rodgers, J. L. (1996). NLSY youth linking algorithm, unpublished document.
Rodgers, J. L., Kohler, H.-P., Kyvik, K. O., and Christensen, K. (2001). Behavior genetic modeling of human fertility: Findings from a contemporary Danish twin study. Demography 38: 29–42.
Rodgers, J. L., and McGue, M. (1994). A simple algebraic demonstration of the validity of DeFries-Fulker analysis in unselected samples with multiple kinship levels. Behav. Genet. 24: 259–262.
Rodgers, J. L., and Rowe, D. C. (1987). IQ similarity in twins, siblings, half-siblings, cousins, and random pairs. Intelligence 11: 199–206.
Rodgers, J. L., Rowe, D. C., and Li, C. (1994a). Beyond nature vs. nurture: DF analysis of nonshared influences on problem behaviors. Dev. Psychol. 30:374–384.
Rodgers, J. L., Rowe, D. C., and May, K. (1994b). DF analysis of NLSY IQ/achievement data: Nonshared environmental influences. Intelligence 19: 157–177.
Rodgers, J. L., Rowe, D. C., and Buster, M. (1999). Nature, nurture, and first sexual intercourse in the USA: Fitting behavioral genetic models to NLSY kinship data. J. Biosoc. Sci. 31: 29–41.
Rowe, D. C. (1983). Biometrical genetic models of self-reported delinquent behavior: Twin study. Behav. Genet. 13: 473–489.
Rowe, D. C. (1985). Sibling interaction and self-reported delinquent behavior: A study of 265 twin pairs. Criminology 23: 223–240.
Rowe, D. C. (1992). Sibling effects on substance abuse and delinquency. Criminology 30: 217–233.
Rowe, D. C., and Britt, C. L. (1991). Developmental explanations of delinquent behavior among siblings: Common factor vs. transmission mechanisms. J. Quant. Criminol. 7: 315–332.
Rowe, D. C., and Plomin, R. (1981). The importance of nonshared (E1) environmental influences in behavioral development. Dev. Psychol. 17:517–531.
Rowe, D. C., and Rodgers, J. L. (1989). Behavioral genetics, adolescent deviance, and ''d.'' In Adams, G., Montemayor, R., and Bullota, T. (eds.), Biology of Adolescent Development and Behavior,Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
Rowe, D. C., Rodgers, J. L., and Meseck-Bushey, S. (1992). Sibling delinquency and the family environment: Shared and unshared influences. Child Dev. 63: 59–67.
Rowe, D. C., and Waldman, I. (1993). The question “How?” reconsidered. In Plomin, R., and McClearn, G. (eds.), Nature, Nurture, and Psychology, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 355–374.
Wach, T. D. (1983). The use and abuse of environment in behavior-genetic research. Child Dev. 54: 396–407.
Wilson, J. Q., and Herrnstein, R. J. (1985). Crime and Human Nature, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Zieleniewski, A. M., Fulker, D. W., DeFries, J. C., and LaBuda, M. C. (1987). Multiple regression analysis of twin and sibling data. Person. Indiv. Diff. 8: 787–791.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rodgers, J.L., Buster, M. & Rowe, D.C. Genetic and Environmental Influences on Delinquency: DF Analysis of NLSY Kinship Data. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 17, 145–168 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011097929954
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011097929954