Mokpo National University, Jeonnam, South Korea.
Behav Genet. 2012 Jul;42(4):541-8. doi: 10.1007/s10519-012-9541-2. Epub 2012 May 5.
The way people cope with stressors of day to day living has an important influence on health. The aim of the present study was to explore whether genetic and environmental variations in stress-coping differ over time during adulthood. The brief COPE was mailed to a large sample of the UK female twins (N = 4,736) having a wide range of age (20-87 years). Factor analyses of the items of the brief COPE yielded three coping scales: 'Problem-Solving', 'Support Seeking', and 'Avoidance'. Monozygotic and dizygotic twin correlations tended to become lower with age for all three scales, suggesting that unique environmental factors may become more important with age during adulthood. Model-fitting results showed that relative influences of unique environmental factors increased from 60 % at age 20 years to 74% at age 87 years for 'Problem-Solving' and 56 % at age 20 years to 76% at age 87 years for 'Avoidance'. During the same age period, genetic factors decreased from 40 to 26 % for 'Problem-Solving' and from 44 to 24 % for 'Avoidance'. For 'Seeking Support', the magnitude of genetic and unique environmental factors was not significantly different across the adulthood. For all three scales, shared environmental effects were negligible. Overall, our findings implicate that the effects of environment that stem from idiosyncratic experience of stressful life events accumulate and become increasingly important in adulthood.
人们应对日常生活压力源的方式对健康有重要影响。本研究旨在探讨成年期压力应对的遗传和环境变化是否随时间而变化。简短应对方式量表（brief COPE）被邮寄给英国女性双胞胎的大样本（N=4736），年龄范围很广（20-87 岁）。简短应对方式量表的项目进行因素分析后，得出三个应对量表：“问题解决”、“寻求支持”和“回避”。同卵和异卵双胞胎的相关性往往随年龄的增长而降低，这表明独特的环境因素在成年期可能随着年龄的增长变得更加重要。模型拟合结果表明，独特环境因素的相对影响从 20 岁时的 60%增加到 87 岁时的 74%，用于“问题解决”；从 20 岁时的 56%增加到 87 岁时的 76%，用于“回避”。在同一时期，遗传因素从 40%减少到 26%，用于“问题解决”；从 44%减少到 24%，用于“回避”。对于“寻求支持”，遗传和独特环境因素的大小在成年期没有显著差异。对于所有三个量表，共享环境的影响可以忽略不计。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，源自个体压力生活事件的独特经验的环境影响会积累，并在成年期变得越来越重要。
