Genetic and environmental influences of maternal psychosocial and antisocial tendencies on the development, stability, and continuity of problem behaviors in adoptees from the Texas Adoption Project: A life course investigation of risk, resilience, and vulnerability
Year: 2006
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Utilizing a 30 year longitudinal investigation of 300 adoptive families, the influence of \nboth general and specific maternal psychological functioning on the development, \nstability, and continuity of problem behaviors was investigated. In the first part of the \ninvestigation, biological and adoptive mothers’ scores on eight subscales from the \nMinnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory were investigated to discover whether \ngeneral psychosocial functioning, defined as the number of elevated subscales scores, or \nspecific subscales were related to problem behavior development during childhood, \nadolescence, and adulthood. Based on earlier findings from the Texas Adoption Project \n(Loehlin, Willerman, & Horn, 1982, 1987), it was predicted that birth mothers’ general \npsychosocial functioning would predict problem behavior development in their adopted \naway offspring during adolescence and adulthood, but that the adoptive mothers’ general \nfunctioning would predict behavior problems during childhood. I also predicted that the \nbirth mothers’ specific subscales, namely the psychopathic deviate scale, would be the \nstrongest predictor of adoptee behavior problems across the entire life span. These \nhypotheses were generally supported. In the second part of the investigation, the stability \nand continuity of problem behaviors were assessed to explore whether mean and intraindividual \ntrends in behavior, from childhood through middle-adulthood, differ as a \nfunction of gender, adoptive status, and relative risk status. Genetic and shared \nenvironmental influences on problem behavior development and continuity were also \ninvestigated using correlations between biologically related and non-related sibling pairs. \nTrends in both mean behavioral stability and intra-individual continuity were found to \ndiffer between groups and genetic effects were found for the development of, but not \ncontinuity in, problem behaviors. Finally, individual and family environmental \ncharacteristics were investigated as potential risk or protective factors for two groups of \nadoptees that varied in the amount of genetic risk they faced for problem behavior \ndevelopment. Findings from the investigation highlight the necessity for using genetically \ninformative, longitudinal samples to investigate the influence of maternal psychological \nfunctioning on the development of problem behavior. The importance of conducting \nanalyses of the influences of genetics and environmental factors separately for males and \nfemales, as well as for Higher-Risk individuals, is also addressed.
Author: Jody L. Ernst
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2161990258