MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Barley House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol, UK.
Transl Psychiatry. 2021 Nov 5;11(1):563. doi: 10.1038/s41398-021-01661-8.
Noncognitive skills have been shown to associate with a range of health and socioeconomic outcomes. Many studies have relied on cross sectional data and have been unable to assess the longitudinal consistency of noncognitive skill measures. Using data from a UK birth cohort, we investigated a range of noncognitive skills: behavioural problems, social skills, communication, self-esteem, persistence, locus of control, empathy, impulsivity and personality. We assessed their consistency over a 17-year period throughout childhood and adolescence (age 6 months to 18 years), their genomic architecture, and their associations with socioeconomic outcomes. We found high longitudinal measurement consistency for behavioural and communication skills, but low consistency for other noncognitive skills, suggesting a high noise to signal ratio. We observed consistent non-zero heritability estimates and genetic correlations for only behavioural difficulties. Using aggregate measures of each skill over time, we found evidence of phenotypic correlations and heritability ([Formula: see text] = 0.1-0.2) for behaviour, communication, self-esteem and locus of control. Associations between noncognitive skills and educational outcomes were observed for skills measured in mid to late childhood but these were at most a third of the size of IQ-education associations. These results suggest that measures designed to capture noncognitive skills may be subject to considerable response heterogeneity or measurement error. Aggregate measures that leverage repeat responses from longitudinal data may offer researchers more reliable measures that better identify underlying noncognitive skills than cross sectional measures.
非认知技能与一系列健康和社会经济结果相关。许多研究依赖于横断面数据，无法评估非认知技能测量的纵向一致性。我们使用来自英国出生队列的数据，研究了一系列非认知技能：行为问题、社交技能、沟通、自尊、毅力、控制源、同理心、冲动和个性。我们评估了它们在整个儿童期和青春期（6 个月至 18 岁）的 17 年期间的一致性、它们的基因组结构以及它们与社会经济结果的关联。我们发现行为和沟通技能具有较高的纵向测量一致性，但其他非认知技能的一致性较低，表明信噪比高。我们只观察到行为困难的一致非零遗传力估计值和遗传相关性。使用随时间变化的每个技能的综合指标，我们发现行为、沟通、自尊和控制源具有表型相关性和遗传相关性（[公式：见文本] = 0.1-0.2）的证据。在儿童中期至后期测量的非认知技能与教育结果之间存在关联，但这些关联最多只占智商与教育关联的三分之一。这些结果表明，旨在捕捉非认知技能的测量方法可能会受到相当大的反应异质性或测量误差的影响。利用纵向数据重复响应的综合措施可能为研究人员提供更可靠的措施，这些措施比横断面措施更能识别潜在的非认知技能。
