Abstract
The current study focused on longitudinal effects of genetics and parental behaviors and their interplay on externalizing behaviors in a panel study following individuals from adolescence to young adulthood. The nationally representative sample of Add Health participants of European ancestry included N = 4142 individuals, measured on three occasions. Parenting was operationalized as experiences with child maltreatment and maternal closeness. Externalizing problems were operationalized as alcohol use, cannabis use, and antisocial behaviors. Genetic effects were operationalized as a polygenic score (PGS) of risky behaviors. The results showed significant effects for child maltreatment, maternal closeness, and PGS, above and beyond other factors and previous levels of externalizing behaviors. Furthermore, maternal closeness was found to negatively correlate with PGS. No significant interaction effects of parenting and PGS were found. The results underscore the joint independent effects of parenting and genetics on the change in externalizing behaviors from adolescence to young adulthood.
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Acknowledgements
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.
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Rebecca Smith was supported by award 1F31AA028720-01A1.
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Conceptualization: AJK, RLS, PBB, ATV; Methodology: AJK, RLS, PBB, ATV; Formal analysis and investigation: AJK; Writing—original draft preparation: AJK, RLS, PBB, ATV. All authors approved the manuscript in its current form.
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Albert J. Ksinan, Rebecca L. Smith, Peter B. Barr and Alexander T. Vazsonyi have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The IRB approval was obtained at the site of the original data collection. IRB approval for the analysis of the secondary data was given to all authors of this study.
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Ksinan, A.J., Smith, R.L., Barr, P.B. et al. The Associations of Polygenic Scores for Risky Behaviors and Parenting Behaviors with Adolescent Externalizing Problems. Behav Genet 52, 26–37 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-021-10079-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-021-10079-3