Comparing the biological and cultural inheritance of personality and social attitudes in the Virginia 30 000 study of twins and their relatives

Twin Research ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindon Eaves ◽  
Andrew Heath ◽  
Nicholas Martin ◽  
Hermine Maes ◽  
Michael Neale ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Adoption Studies ◽  
Attitude Measures

AbstractMeasures of four dimensions of personality (Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Lie scores) and six aspects of social attitudes (to sex, taxation, militarism, politics, religion and a general conservatism scale) were obtained by mailed questionnaire from 29 691 US subjects including adult twins (n = 14 761) their parents (n = 2360), their spouses (n = 4391), siblings (n = 3184) and adult children (n = 4800). After correction for the average effects of age, sex and source of sample, familial correlations were computed for 80 distinct biological and social relationships. The data allow for the estimation of the additive and non-additive effects of genes, assortative mating, vertical cultural inheritance and other non-parental effects of the shared environment on differences in personality and social attitudes. The interaction of genetic and environmental effects with sex may also be analyzed. Model-fitting analyses show that personality and social attitude measures differ markedly in major features of family resemblance. Additive and dominant genetic effects contribute to differences in both personality and attitudes, but the effects of the family environment, including vertical cultural transmission from parent to child, are much more marked for social attitudes than for personality. There is substantial assortative mating for social attitudes and almost none for personality. The causes of family resemblance depend significantly on sex for almost every variable studied. These findings clarify and extend the more tentative findings derived from previous twin, family and adoption studies.

Genetic and Cultural Transmission of Antisocial Behavior: An Extended Twin Parent Model

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermine H. Maes ◽  
Judy L. Silberg ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Lindon J. Eaves
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Antisocial Behavior ◽  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Simultaneous Estimation ◽  
Adoption Studies ◽  
Expression Of Genes ◽  
Genes And Environment ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

AbstractConsiderable evidence from twin and adoption studies indicates that both genetic and shared environmental factors play a substantial role in the liability to antisocial behavior. Although twin and adoption designs can resolve genetic and environmental influences, they do not provide information about assortative mating, parent–offspring transmission, or the contribution of these factors to trait variation. We examined the role of genetic and environmental factors for conduct disorder (CD) using a twin–parent design. This design allows the simultaneous estimation of additive genetic, shared and individual-specific environmental effects, as well as sex differences in the expression of genes and environment in the presence of assortative mating and combined genetic and cultural transmission. A retrospective measure of CD was obtained from twins and their parents or guardians in the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavior Development and its Young Adult Follow up sample. Both genetic and environmental factors play a significant role in the liability to CD. Major influences on individual differences appeared to be additive genetic (38%–40%) and unique environmental (39%–42%) effects, with smaller contributions from the shared environment (18%–23%), assortative mating (~2%), cultural transmission (~2%) and resulting genotype-environment covariance. This study showed significant heritability, which is slightly increased by assortative mating, and significant effects of primarily nonparental shared environment on CD.

scholarly journals Cross-Cultural Comparison of Genetic and Cultural Transmission of Smoking Initiation Using an Extended Twin Kinship Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermine H. Maes ◽  
Kate Morley ◽  
Michael C. Neale ◽  
Kenneth S. Kendler ◽  
Andrew C. Heath ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Smoking Behavior ◽  
Smoking Initiation ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Adoption Studies ◽  
Genes And Environment ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors

Background: Considerable evidence from twin and adoption studies indicates that genetic and shared environmental factors play a role in the initiation of smoking behavior. Although twin and adoption designs are powerful to detect genetic and environmental influences, they do not provide information on the processes of assortative mating and parent–offspring transmission and their contribution to the variability explained by genetic and/or environmental factors. Methods: We examined the role of genetic and environmental factors in individual differences for smoking initiation (SI) using an extended kinship design. This design allows the simultaneous testing of additive and non-additive genetic, shared and individual-specific environmental factors, as well as sex differences in the expression of genes and environment in the presence of assortative mating and combined genetic and cultural transmission, while also estimating the regression of the prevalence of SI on age. A dichotomous lifetime ‘ever’ smoking measure was obtained from twins and relatives in the ‘Virginia 30,000’ sample and the ‘Australian 25,000’. Results: Results demonstrate that both genetic and environmental factors play a significant role in the liability to SI. Major influences on individual differences appeared to be additive genetic and unique environmental effects, with smaller contributions from assortative mating, shared sibling environment, twin environment, cultural transmission, and resulting genotype-environment covariance. Age regression of the prevalence of SI was significant. The finding of negative cultural transmission without dominance led us to investigate more closely two possible mechanisms for the lower parent–offspring correlations compared to the sibling and DZ twin correlations in subsets of the data: (1) age × gene interaction, and (2) social homogamy. Neither of the mechanism provided a significantly better explanation of the data. Conclusions: This study showed significant heritability, partly due to assortment, and significant effects of primarily non-parental shared environment on liability to SI.

The Importance of Nongenetic Influences on Romantic Love Styles: A Twin-Family Study

1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 268-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels G. Waller ◽  
Phillip R. Shaver
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Family Study ◽  
Personality Development ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Large Individual ◽  
Love Styles ◽  
The Common

Research in several disciplines reveals large individual differences in orientations to romantic love, yet the origins of the differences have been unclear In this first behavior genetic study of romantic love, biometric model fitting reveals that in contrast to other personality and attitude domains, where genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the reliable variance and shared environment has little effect, individual differences in romantic love are due almost exclusively to environment Moreover, the common family environment plays a sizable role in determining love styles, a finding compatible with theories stressing the importance of family inter-actions in personality development

scholarly journals Genetic and environmental contributions to prosocial behaviour in 2- to 9-year-old South Korean twins

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 664-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoon-Mi Hur ◽  
J. Philippe Rushton
Keyword(s):  
Family Environment ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Antisocial Behaviour ◽  
Prosocial Behaviour ◽  
Old South ◽  
Adoption Studies ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Environment Effects ◽  
Best Fitting

Although over 50 twin and adoption studies have been performed on the genetic architecture of antisocial behaviour, far fewer studies have investigated prosocial behaviour, and none have done so on a non-western population. The present study examined mothers' ratings of prosocial behaviour in 514 pairs of 2- to 9-year-old South Korean monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Correlational analyses showed a tendency of increasing genetic effects and decreasing shared environmental effects with age although shared family environment effects and the moderating effects of age did not attain statistical significance in model-fitting analyses. The best-fitting model indicated that 55% (95% CI: 45–64%) of the variance in the 2- to 9-year-olds' prosocial behaviour was due to genetic factors and 45% (95% CI: 36–55%) was due to non-shared environmental factors. It is concluded that genetic and environmental influences on prosocial behaviour in young South Koreans are mostly similar to those in western samples.

Cultural evolution and cultural psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Human Psychology

Cultural evolution is a branch of the evolutionary sciences which assumes that (i) human cognition and behaviour is shaped not only by genetic inheritance, but also cultural inheritance (also known as social learning), and (ii) this cultural inheritance constitutes a Darwinian evolutionary system that can be analysed and studied using tools borrowed from evolutionary biology. In this chapter I explore the numerous compatibilities between the fields of cultural evolution and cultural psychology, and the potential mutual benefits from their closer alignment. First, understanding the evolutionary context within which human psychology emerged gives added significance to the findings of cultural psychologists, which reinforce the conclusion reached by cultural evolution scholars that humans inhabit a ‘cultural niche’ within which the major means of adaptation to difference environments is cultural, rather than genetic. Hence, we should not be surprised that human psychology shows substantial cross-cultural variation. Second, a focus on cultural transmission pathways, drawing on cultural evolution models and empirical research, can help to explain to the maintenance of, and potential changes in, cultural variation in psychological processes. Evidence from migrants, in particular, points to a mix of vertical, oblique and horizontal cultural transmission that can explain the differential stability of different cultural dimensions. Third, cultural evolutionary methods offer powerful means of testing historical (“macro-evolutionary”) hypotheses put forward by cultural psychologists for the origin of psychological differences. Explanations in terms of means of subsistence, rates of environmental change or pathogen prevalence can be tested using quantitative models and phylogenetic analyses that can be used to reconstruct cultural lineages. Evolutionary considerations also point to potential problems with current cross-country comparisons conducted within cultural psychology, such as the non-independence of data points due to shared cultural history. Finally, I argue that cultural psychology can play a central role in a synthetic evolutionary science of culture, providing valuable links between individual-oriented disciplines such as experimental psychology and neuroscience on the one hand, and society-oriented disciplines such as anthropology, history and sociology on the other, all within an evolutionary framework that provides links to the biological sciences.

scholarly journals Twin studies for the investigation of the relationships between genetic factors and brain abnormalities in bipolar disorder

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 515-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Squarcina ◽  
C. Fagnani ◽  
M. Bellani ◽  
C. A. Altamura ◽  
P. Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Twin Studies ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
High Heritability ◽  
The Relationship

The pathogenesis of bipolar disorder (BD) is to date not entirely clear. Classical genetic research showed that there is a contribution of genetic factors in BD, with high heritability. Twin studies, thanks to the fact that confounding factors as genetic background or family environment are shared, allow etiological inferences. In this work, we selected twin studies, which focus on the relationship between BD, genetic factors and brain structure, evaluated with magnetic resonance imaging. All the studies found differences in brain structure between BD patients and their co-twins, and also in respect to healthy controls. Genetic effects are predominant in white matter, except corpus callosum, while gray matter resulted more influenced by environment, or by the disease itself. All studies found no interactions between BD and shared environment between twins. Twin studies have been demonstrated to be useful in exploring BD pathogenesis and could be extremely effective at discriminating the neural mechanisms underlying BD.

scholarly journals Comparing the biological and cultural inheritance of personality and social attitudes in the Virginia 30 000 study of twins and their relatives

Twin Research ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindon Eaves ◽  
Andrew Heath ◽  
Nicholas Martin ◽  
Hermine Maes ◽  
Michael Neale ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Cultural Inheritance

scholarly journals Prevalence and heritability of body dysmorphic symptoms in adolescents and young adults: a population-based nationwide twin study

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (16) ◽  
pp. 2740-2747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Enander ◽  
Volen Z. Ivanov ◽  
David Mataix-Cols ◽  
Ralf Kuja-Halkola ◽  
Brjánn Ljótsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Body Dysmorphic Disorder ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Adolescents And Young Adults ◽  
Shared Environment ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Clinically Significant ◽  
Alcohol Related Problems

AbstractBackgroundBody dysmorphic disorder (BDD) usually begins during adolescence but little is known about the prevalence, etiology, and patterns of comorbidity in this age group. We investigated the prevalence of BDD symptoms in adolescents and young adults. We also report on the relative importance of genetic and environmental influences on BDD symptoms, and the risk for co-existing psychopathology.MethodsPrevalence of BDD symptoms was determined by a validated cut-off on the Dysmorphic Concerns Questionnaire (DCQ) in three population-based twin cohorts at ages 15 (n = 6968), 18 (n = 3738), and 20–28 (n = 4671). Heritability analysis was performed using univariate model-fitting for the DCQ. The risk for co-existing psychopathology was expressed as odds ratios (OR).ResultsThe prevalence of clinically significant BDD symptoms was estimated to be between 1 and 2% in the different cohorts, with a significantly higher prevalence in females (1.3–3.3%) than in males (0.2–0.6%). The heritability of body dysmorphic concerns was estimated to be 49% (95% CI 38–54%) at age 15, 39% (95% CI 30–46) at age 18, and 37% (95% CI 29–42) at ages 20–28, with the remaining variance being due to non-shared environment. ORs for co-existing neuropsychiatric and alcohol-related problems ranged from 2.3 to 13.2.ConclusionsClinically significant BDD symptoms are relatively common in adolescence and young adulthood, particularly in females. The low occurrence of BDD symptoms in adolescent boys may indicate sex differences in age of onset and/or etiological mechanisms. BDD symptoms are moderately heritable in young people and associated with an increased risk for co-existing neuropsychiatric and alcohol-related problems.

Modeling Extended Twin Family Data II: Power Associated With Different Family Structures

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Medland ◽  
Matthew C. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Environmental Effects ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Genetic Effects ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
Nonrandom Mating ◽  
Children Of Twins

AbstractModeling the data from extended twin pedigrees allows the estimation of increasing complex covariance relationships in which the effects of cultural transmission, nonrandom mating and genotype x environment covariation can be incorporated. However, the power to detect these effects in existing data sets has not yet been examined. The present study examined the effects that different family structures (i.e., the ratio of MZ to DZ families and the importance of cousins vs. avuncular relatives) have on statistical power. In addition, we examined the power to detect genetic and environmental effects within the context of two large data sets (VA30K and the OZVA60K). We found that power to detect additive genetic and cultural transmission effects were maximized by over sampling MZ families. In terms of ascertainment, there was little difference in power between samples that had focused on recruiting a third generation (the children of twins) versus those that had focused on recruiting the siblings of the twins. In addition, we examined the power to detect additive and dominant genetic effects, cultural transmission and assortative mating in the existing VA30K and OZVA60K samples, under two different models of mating: phenotypic assortment and social homogamy. There was nearly 100% power to detect assortative mating and cultural transmission, against a background of small additive and dominant genetic and familial environmental effects. In addition, the power to detect additive or dominant genetic effects quickly asymptoted, so that there was almost 100% power to detect effects explaining 20% or more of the total variance. These results demonstrate that the Cascade model has sufficient power to detect parameters of interest in existing datasets. Mx scripts are available from www.vipbg.vcu.edu/~sarahme/cascade.

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