Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's College London,London,UK.
Department of Psychology,The George Washington University,Washington, DC,USA.
Psychol Med. 2018 Mar;48(4):592-603. doi: 10.1017/S0033291717001908. Epub 2017 Jul 26.
Associations between parenting and child outcomes are often interpreted as reflecting causal, social influences. However, such associations may be confounded by genes common to children and their biological parents. To the extent that these shared genes influence behaviours in both generations, a passive genetic mechanism may explain links between them. Here we aim to quantify the relative importance of passive genetic v. social mechanisms in the intergenerational association between parent-offspring relationship quality and offspring internalizing problems in adolescence.
We used a Children-of-Twins (CoT) design with data from the parent-based Twin and Offspring Study of Sweden (TOSS) sample [909 adult twin pairs and their offspring; offspring mean age 15.75 (2.42) years], and the child-based Swedish Twin Study of CHild and Adolescent Development (TCHAD) sample [1120 adolescent twin pairs; mean age 13.67 (0.47) years]. A composite of parent-report measures (closeness, conflict, disagreements, expressions of affection) indexed parent-offspring relationship quality in TOSS, and offspring self-reported internalizing symptoms were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) in both samples.
A social transmission mechanism explained the intergenerational association [r = 0.21 (0.16-0.25)] in our best-fitting model. A passive genetic transmission pathway was not found to be significant, indicating that parental genetic influences on parent-offspring relationship quality and offspring genetic influences on their internalizing problems were non-overlapping.
These results indicate that this intergenerational association is a product of social interactions between children and parents, within which bidirectional effects are highly plausible. Results from genetically informative studies of parenting-related effects should be used to help refine early parenting interventions aimed at reducing risk for psychopathology.
父母养育方式与儿童发展结果之间的关联通常被解释为反映了因果关系和社会影响。然而，这些关联可能受到孩子及其亲生父母共有的基因的影响。如果这些共同的基因影响了两代人的行为，那么被动遗传机制可能可以解释它们之间的联系。在这里，我们旨在量化亲子关系质量与青少年期子女内化问题之间的代际关联中被动遗传与社会机制的相对重要性。
我们使用了来自瑞典基于父母的双胞胎和后代研究（TOSS）样本（909 对成年双胞胎及其后代；后代平均年龄 15.75（2.42）岁）和基于儿童的瑞典双胞胎研究青少年发展（TCHAD）样本（1120 对青少年双胞胎；平均年龄 13.67（0.47）岁）的儿童双胞胎（CoT）设计。TOSS 中的父母报告量表（亲密、冲突、分歧、情感表达）综合指标评估了亲子关系质量，而两个样本中均使用儿童行为检查表（CBCL）评估了子女的内化症状。
在我们的最佳拟合模型中，社会传递机制解释了代际关联[r = 0.21（0.16-0.25）]。未发现被动遗传传递途径具有统计学意义，这表明父母对亲子关系质量的遗传影响和子女对其内化问题的遗传影响是不重叠的。
这些结果表明，这种代际关联是儿童与父母之间社会相互作用的产物，在这种相互作用中，双向效应是非常有可能的。具有遗传信息的育儿相关效应研究的结果应被用来帮助完善旨在降低精神病理学风险的早期育儿干预措施。
