Genetic and Environmental Links between : General Factors of Psychopathology and Cognitive Ability in Early Childhood.

In adults, psychiatric disorders are highly comorbid, and are negatively associated with cognitive abilities. Individual cognitive measures have been linked with domains of child psychopathology, but the specificity of these associations and the extent to which they reflect shared genetic influences are unknown. This study examines the relation between general factors of cognitive ability () and psychopathology () in early development using two genetically-informative samples: the Texas "Tiny" Twin project (TXtT; = 626 individuals, age range = 0.

Multivariate analysis of genetic and environmental influences on parenting in adolescence.

Adolescents whose parents are affectionate, maintain consistent rules, and are knowledgeable about their whereabouts tend to exhibit more adaptive levels of psychological functioning across multiple domains. Behavioral genetic research has documented the sensitivity of parenting to genetically influenced child characteristics and behaviors. Yet, the question of whether the correlations between parenting behaviors are driven by overlapping parent effects, overlapping child effects, or some combination of the two remains open.

From specialist to generalist: Developmental transformations in the genetic structure of early child abilities.

The heritability of abilities increases substantially over development, and much of heritable variation in abilities is shared with other abilities. No study, however, has formally tested the extent to which developmental increases in heritability occur on shared versus unique variation in child abilities. A transactional perspective predicts that the relative proportion of shared to total genetic variance will increase with age, whereas an endogenous perspective predicts that such proportion will be invariant with age.

Gross domestic product, science interest, and science achievement: a person × nation interaction.

Maximizing science achievement is a critical target of educational policy and has important implications for national and international economic and technological competitiveness. Previous research has identified both science interest and socioeconomic status (SES) as robust predictors of science achievement, but little research has examined their joint effects. In a data set drawn from approximately 400,000 high school students from 57 countries, we documented large Science Interest × SES and Science Interest × Per Capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) interactions in the prediction of science achievement.

Gene×Environment interactions in early externalizing behaviors: parental emotional support and socioeconomic context as moderators of genetic influences?

This study uses longitudinal population-based samples of young siblings to examine the effects of two hypothesized moderators of early externalizing behaviors: parental emotional support and family socioeconomic status. The first sample, a twin sample from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), was composed of approximately 600 twin pairs measured on externalizing at ages 4 and 5. Results indicated stronger genetic influences on externalizing at lower levels of parental emotional support but higher levels of socioeconomic status; only the latter interaction remained significant when the two moderators were simultaneously modeled.