Department of Psychology.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University.
Dev Psychol. 2019 Nov;55(11):2403-2416. doi: 10.1037/dev0000799. Epub 2019 Aug 15.
Children's negative emotionality (NE) is frequently associated with parental negativity, but causal understanding of this relationship is limited. In addition, little is known about how genetic and environmental factors affect this relationship during middle childhood. We addressed these gaps by applying a quantitative genetic analysis to cross-lagged associations between mothers' and fathers' parental negativity and children's NE during middle childhood. The sample comprised of 456 families when the children were 6.5 years old, and 401 families when the children were 8/9 years old. Mothers' and fathers' negativity and children's NE were assessed using questionnaires. Results showed that variation in parental negativity was mainly accounted for by the environment shared by children, with some indication of an evocative effect of the children's genes on mothers, but not fathers. Children's NE was accounted for by both genetic and shared environmental influences. Parental negativity and children's NE had moderate continuity over the course of two years. Mothers' (but not fathers') negativity when the children were 6.5 years old predicted change in children's NE (rated by the same or the other parent) toward age 8/9 years, but not the other way around. Shared environmental influences were the main contributor to the association between earlier mothers' negativity and later children's NE. Thus, although children's NE was partially heritable, and parenting too was partially accounted for by children's genes, the association between parental negativity and children's NE, at this age, reflects environmental effects and is compatible with mothers' influence on children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
儿童的负性情绪（NE）经常与父母的消极性有关，但对这种关系的因果理解有限。此外，对于遗传和环境因素如何在儿童中期影响这种关系，我们知之甚少。我们通过对母亲和父亲在儿童中期的父母消极性与儿童 NE 之间的交叉滞后关联进行定量遗传分析来解决这些差距。该样本包括儿童 6.5 岁时的 456 个家庭，以及儿童 8/9 岁时的 401 个家庭。使用问卷评估母亲和父亲的消极性和儿童的 NE。结果表明，父母消极性的变化主要由儿童共享的环境决定，儿童的基因对母亲有一定的唤起效应，但对父亲没有。儿童的 NE 受遗传和共享环境的影响。父母消极性和儿童 NE 在两年内具有中等连续性。儿童 6.5 岁时母亲的消极性（但不是父亲的消极性）预测了儿童 NE 的变化（由同一父母或另一位父母评定）至 8/9 岁，但反之则不然。共享环境影响是早期母亲消极性与后期儿童 NE 之间关联的主要贡献者。因此，尽管儿童的 NE 部分是可遗传的，而育儿也部分受儿童基因的影响，但在这个年龄段，父母的消极性与儿童的 NE 之间的关联反映了环境影响，与母亲对儿童的影响是一致的。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
