Genetics and Antisocial Behaviors
Genetic and environmental influences on antisocial behavior
Catherine Tuvblad, Kevin M. Beaver
The genetic and environmental overlap between aggressive and non-aggressive antisocial behavior in children and adolescents using the self-report delinquency interview (SR-DI)
Pan Wang, Sharon Niv, Catherine Tuvblad, Adrian Raine, Laura A. Baker
Purpose: This study investigated genetic and environmental commonalities and differences between aggressive and non-aggressive antisocial behavior (ASB) in male and female child and adolescent twins, based on a newly developed self-report questionnaire with good reliability and external validity -- the Self-Report Delinquency Interview (SR-DI). Methods: Subjects were 780 pairs of twins assessed through laboratory interviews at three time points in a longitudinal study, during which the twins were: (1) ages 9-10 years; (2) age 11-13 years, and (3) age 16-18 years. Results: Sex differences were repeatedly observed for mean levels of ASB. In addition, diverse change patterns of genetic and environmental emerged, as a function of sex and form of ASB, during the development from childhood to adolescence. Although there was some overlap in etiologies of aggressive and non-aggressive ASB, predominantly in shared environmental factors, their genetic overlap was moderate and the non-shared environmental overlap was low. Conclusions: Taken together, these results reinforced the importance of differentiating forms of ASB and further investigating sex differences in future research. These results should be considered in future comparisons between youth self-report and parental or teacher report of child and adolescent behavior, and may help elucidate commonalities and differences among informants.
Aggression and rule-breaking: Heritability and stability of antisocial behavior problems in childhood and adolescence
Sharon Niv, Catherine Tuvblad, Adrian Raine, Laura A. Baker
Purpose: This twin study examined the structure of genetic and environmental influences on aggression and rule-breaking in order to examine change and stability across the span of childhood to mid-adolescence. Methods: Behavioral assessments were conducted at two time points: age 9–10 years and 14–15 years. Using behavioral genetics biometric modeling, the longitudinal structure of influences was investigated. Results: Aggression and rule-breaking were found to be influenced by a latent common factor of antisocial behavior (ASB) within each wave of data collection. The variance in the childhood-age common factor of ASB was influenced by 41% genetics, 40% shared environment and 19% nonshared environment. In adolescence, 41% of variance in the common factor were novel and entirely genetic, while the remainder of variance was stable across time. Additionally, both aggression and rule-breaking within each wave were found to have unique influences not common across subscales or across waves, highlighting specificity of genetic and environmental effects on different problem behaviors at both ages. Conclusions: This research sheds light on the commonality of influences on different forms of antisocial behavior. Future research into interventions for antisocial behavior problems in youth could focus on adolescence-specific environmental influences.
Biological protective factors for antisocial and criminal behavior
Jill Portnoy, Frances R. Chen, Adrian Raine
Purpose: Although risk factors are typically the focus of criminological research, increasingly researchers are interested in identifying protective factors that reduce the probability of antisocial behavior, either in the presence or absence of risk factors. Biosocial researchers are in an opportune position to research factors that protect against the development of antisocial behavior in high-risk individuals, given biosocial criminology’s focus on the interaction between biological and social factors. The purpose of this article is to review neuropsychological and psychophysiology research into protective factors. Results: Of the neuropsychological factors, high IQ has the best-replicated protective effects, though executive functioning is also a promising candidate as a protective factor. High resting heart rate, as well as enhanced autonomic fear conditioning and attentional processing may also have protective effects. Conclusions: Though research into biological protective factors is currently limited, there is promising evidence that biological factors could help us to better understand why some individuals do not become antisocial or criminal in the presence of high social risk. Neuropsychological and psychophysiological measures are relatively easier and less costly to operationalize than other biological measures, making them promising candidates for criminological researchers who would like to incorporate biological measures into their research designs.
Genetic and environmental contributions to stability and change in levels of self-control
Kevin M. Beaver, Eric J. Connolly, Joseph A. Schwartz, Mohammed Said Al-Ghamdi, Ahmed Nezar Kobeisy
Purpose: There has been an emerging body of research estimating the stability in levels of self-control across different sections of the life course. At the same time, some of this research has attempted to examine the factors that account for both stability and change in levels of self-control. Missing from much of this research is a concerted focus on the genetic and environmental architecture of stability and change in self-control. Methods: The current study was designed to address this issue by analyzing a sample of kinship pairs drawn from the Child and Young Adult Supplement of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (CNLSY). Results: Analyses of these data revealed that genetic factors accounted for between 74 and 92 percent of the stability in self-control and between 78 and 89 percent of the change in self-control. Shared and nonshared environmental factors explained the rest of the stability and change in levels of self-control. Conclusions: A combination of genetic and environmental influences is responsible for the stability and change in levels of self-control over time.
Evidence for a heritable brain basis to deviance-promoting deficits in self-control
James R. Yancey, Noah C. Venables, Brian M. Hicks, Christopher J. Patrick
Purpose: Classic criminological theories emphasize the role of impaired self-control in behavioral deviancy. Reduced amplitude of the P300 brain response is reliably observed in individuals with antisocial and substance-related problems, suggesting it may serve as a neurophysiological indicator of deficiencies in self-control that confer liability to deviancy. Methods: The current study evaluated the role of self-control capacity—operationalized by scores on a scale measure of trait disinhibition—in mediating the relationship between P300 brain response and behavioral deviancy in a sample of adult twins (N = 419) assessed for symptoms of antisocial/addictive disorders and P300 brain response. Results: As predicted, greater disorder symptoms and higher trait disinhibition scores each predicted smaller P300 amplitude, and trait disinhibition mediated observed relations between antisocial/addictive disorders and P300 response. Further, twin modeling analyses revealed that trait disinhibition scores and disorder symptoms reflected a common genetic liability, and this genetic liability largely accounted for the observed phenotypic relationship between antisocial-addictive problems and P300 brain response. Conclusions: These results provide further evidence that heritable weaknesses in self-control capacity confer liability to antisocial/addictive outcomes and that P300 brain response indexes this dispositional liability.
Teenage childbirth and young adult criminal convictions: A quasi-experimental study of criminal outcomes for teenage mothers
Claire A. Coyne, Nathalie M.G. Fontaine, Niklas Långström, Paul Lichtenstein, Brian M. D’Onofrio
Purpose: Teenage childbirth is associated with poor psychosocial outcomes for teen mothers. One example is that teen mothers have higher rates of antisocial behavior. The extant research has not been able to determine if teenage motherhood is independently associated with criminal behavior, or if the association is due to selection factors associated with both teenage childbirth and criminal behavior. Methods: We used longitudinal data from Swedish national registers and sibling-comparisons (both full- and half-siblings) to identify the extent to which there is an independent association between teenage childbirth and mothers’ likelihood of criminal conviction between ages 20-30, or if the association is confounded by familial (including genetic or environmental) factors that make sisters similar. Results: Women who began childbearing as teenagers were more likely to be convicted of a crime in young adulthood compared to women who delayed childbearing. When sisters were compared, the association between teenage childbirth and criminal convictions disappeared. Multivariate behavior genetic analyses suggest genetic and shared environmental account for the association. Conclusions: The statistical association between teenage childbirth and early adulthood criminal convictions is confounded by genetic and shared environmental factors that influence both the likelihood of teenage childbirth and risk of early adulthood criminal conviction.
Do peer group norms moderate the expression of genetic risk for aggression?
Mara Brendgen, Alain Girard, Frank Vitaro, Ginette Dionne, Michel Boivin
Purpose: Using a genetically informed design based on 192 Monozygotic and Dizygotic twin pairs assessed in kindergarten, this study examined whether the expression of genetic risk for physical aggression or for relational aggression varies depending on the peer group’s injunctive behaviour norms. Methods: Physical aggression and relational aggression, as well as injunctive peer group norms in regard to these behaviours, were measured via peer nominations in the twins’ kindergarten classes. Results: Peer groups varied considerably in terms of the level of acceptability of both physical and relational aggression. Bivariate Cholesky modeling revealed a significant gene-environment interaction, indicating that a strong genetic disposition for physical aggression was much more likely to be expressed when peer group injunctive norms were favourable to such behaviour. In contrast, genetic factors essentially played no role in explaining inter-individual differences when peer group norms discouraged physical aggression. Relational aggression was generally less explained by genetic influences and more by environmental influences regardless of peer group norms, but environmental influences became even more important when peer group norms favoured such behaviour. Conclusions: These findings speak to the importance of the peer group in shaping aggression already in young children by either condoning or penalizing such behaviour.
Psychopathic Personality and Negative Parent-to-Child Affect: A Longitudinal Cross-lag Twin Study
Catherine Tuvblad, Serena Bezdjian, Adrian Raine, Laura A. Baker
Purpose: Previous studies that have explored the relationship between parenting style and children’s antisocial behavior have generally found significant bidirectional effects, whereby parenting behaviors influence their child’s antisocial outcomes, but a child’s behaviors also lead to changes in parenting style. Methods: The present study investigated the genetic and environmental underpinnings of the longitudinal relationship between negative parent-to-child affect and psychopathic personality in a sample of 1,562 twins. Using a biometrical cross-lag analysis, bidirectional effects were investigated across two waves of assessment when the twins were ages 9-10 and 14-15, utilizing both caregiver and youth self-reports. Results: Results demonstrated that negative parental affect observed at ages 9-10 influenced the child’s later psychopathic personality at ages 14-15, based on both caregiver and youth self-reports. For these ‘parent-driven effects’, both genetic and non-shared environmental factors were important in the development of later psychopathic personality during adolescence. There were additional ‘child-driven effects’ such that children’s psychopathic personality at ages 9-10 influenced negative parent-to-child affect at ages 14-15, but only within caregiver reports. Conclusions: Thus, children’s genetically influenced psychopathic personality seemed to evoke later parental negativity at ages 14-15, highlighting the importance of investigating bidirectional effects in parent-child relationships to understand the development of these traits.
Psychopathic personality and utilitarian moral judgment in college students
Yu Gao, Simone Tang
Purpose: Although psychopathy is characterized by amoral behavior, literature on the association between psychopathy and moral judgment pattern is mixed. Recent evidence suggests that this may be due to the moderation effect of anxiety (Koenigs, Kruepke, Zeier, & Newman, 2011). The current study aims to examine the psychopathy-utilitarian judgment association in college students. Method: In this study, a group of 302 college students completed a moral judgment test involving hypothetical dilemmas. Their psychopathic traits were assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory – Short Form (PPI-SF) (Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996). Results: Individuals with higher psychopathic traits were more likely to make utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas. Furthermore, the association between utilitarian responses and psychopathy was more salient for the behavioral factor of psychopathy (PPI-II), and this association was mediated by self-reported aggression. However, the moderating effect of anxiety was not found. Conclusions: These results build upon work on utilitarian moral judgment in psychopathic individuals in a non-incarcerated, non-institutionalized sample, and have important implications for the behavioral correction system.
Genetic risk factors correlate with county-level violent crime rates and collective disadvantage
J.C. Barnes, Brian B. Boutwell, Kevin M. Beaver
Purpose: Social scientists have a rich tradition of uncovering the neighborhood, structural, and ecological correlates of human behavior. Results from this body of evidence have revealed that living in disadvantaged communities portends myriad negative outcomes, including antisocial behaviors. Though it has long been argued that associations between neighborhood factors and individual-level outcomes may, at least partially, reflect genetic selection, a paucity of research has empirically investigated this possibility. Methods: The current study examined whether known genetic risk factors for antisocial behavior were predictive of exposure to disadvantage and violent crime measured at the county level. Drawing on genotypic data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a dopamine risk scale was created based on respondents’ genotypes for DAT1, DRD2, and DRD4. County-level disadvantage was measured via Census data and violent crime rates were measured via the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports. Results: Findings revealed that individuals with a greater number of dopamine risk alleles were more likely to live in a disadvantaged county and were more likely to live in a county with higher violent crime rates.
Stressful life events and adolescent drug use: Moderating influences of the MAOA gene
John M. Stogner, Chris L. Gibson
Purpose: Though stressful life events appear to impact the likelihood and frequency of substance use among adolescents, these effects are often varied and inconsistent. We suggest that the polymorphic MAOA gene may be partially responsible for variable susceptibility to environmental pressures and substance use. More specifically, we hypothesize that adolescents possessing low activity alleles for the MAOA genotype are more likely to respond to stressful life experiences by initiating substance use. Methods: The genetic subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health was analyzed (2,574 adolescents) using logistic regression models for each gender. Respondents’ self-reports of eight key stressors were used to create a composite life stress scale which was allowed to interact with a variable that represented the number of low activity MAOA alleles. Results: For males, a significant interaction emerged between stressful life experiences and the MAOA gene for alcohol (p = .029) and marijuana (p = .039) initiation. For females, the interaction was not significant in each model. Conclusions: MAOA interacts with life stress to increase the likelihood of substance use initiation for males. Those with a low activity MAOA allele are more likely to initiate substance use than those with a high activity allele when exposed to stressful experiences.
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