Generalist genes and specialist environments for adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems: A test of severity and directionality.

ABSTRACT: The generalist genes specialist environment model, when applied to developmental psychopathology, predicts that genetic influences should explain variance that is shared across internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas environmental influences should explain variance that distinguishes the two overarching problem types. The present study is a direct test of this hypothesis, leveraging a sample of 708 twins and siblings (aged 10-18 years, 93% White) from the United States. Measures of severity of symptoms, regardless of type, and of directionality of symptoms - whether the adolescent tended to exhibit more externalizing or internalizing problems - were subjected to genetic (A), shared environmental (C), and nonshared environmental (E) (ACE) variance decompositions. As expected, seve

SUBMITTER: Marceau K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8053717 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature