Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2022 Oct;31(10):1611-1622. doi: 10.1007/s00787-021-01798-3. Epub 2021 May 24.
Socio-environmental factors play an important role in adolescent well-being, but potential genetic contributions to these associations are rarely assessed. To address this gap in the literature, associations between well-being and family conflict and functioning, number of friends, friendship importance and satisfaction, and leisure time variables were studied in N = ~ 4700 twin pairs from the Netherlands Twin Register, us ing generalized estimating equations and twin-difference scores. When twin-difference scores indicated a role for genetic factors, we used bivariate genetic models to quantify genetic and environmental contributions to these associations. We identify significant associations between well-being and family functioning, family conflict, different leisure time activities, number of friends, and satisfaction with friendships. Additionally, we find evidence for large (73-91%) genetic influence on the associations between well-being and family conflict and functioning, leisure time sport/scouting clubs, and satisfaction with friendships. Finally, findings support the hypothesis of a causal association between well-being and family conflict and functioning. These findings have important implications for research into the social correlates of well-being in adolescence, as not taking genetic factors into account leads to overestimations of the influence of identified correlates and consequently to recommendations of these correlates as intervention targets.
社会环境因素在青少年的幸福感中起着重要作用，但很少有人评估这些因素与遗传因素之间的潜在联系。为了填补这一文献空白，本研究使用广义估计方程和双差分数，在来自荷兰双胞胎登记处的 4700 对双胞胎中研究了幸福感与家庭冲突和功能、朋友数量、友谊重要性和满意度以及休闲时间变量之间的关系。当双差分数表明遗传因素起作用时，我们使用双变量遗传模型来量化这些关联中遗传和环境因素的贡献。我们发现幸福感与家庭功能、家庭冲突、不同的休闲时间活动、朋友数量和友谊满意度之间存在显著关联。此外，我们还发现，幸福感与家庭冲突和功能、休闲时间运动/童子军俱乐部以及对友谊的满意度之间存在着很大的（73-91%）遗传影响。最后，研究结果支持幸福感与家庭冲突和功能之间存在因果关系的假设。这些发现对青少年幸福感的社会相关性研究具有重要意义，因为如果不考虑遗传因素，就会高估已确定的相关性的影响，从而导致将这些相关性作为干预目标的建议。
