Describes biological influences on criminality. Illustrative data suggest a biological sex difference in criminality and heritable differences in this trait among individuals. Methods of isolating environmental influences are described. Author notes that using environment-friendly behavior genetic research designs is not only proper but would…

Critiques the "Child Development" special issue on poverty. Argues that the issue understated the variation observed within social class groups and that a confounding of genetic and environmental effects in biological families weakens the case for environmental effects as presented. Concludes that behavior genetic research designs are…

Responds to Huston, McLoyd, and Coll's critique by indicating agreement with many observations about the complexity of poverty and the need for research designs providing stronger causal inferences. Maintains that the authors underestimate contributions that behavior genetic research designs can make toward understanding poverty and that they…

Whether genetic and environmental effects on academic achievement changed as a function of the quality of children's environment was studied with 1664 pairs of full siblings, 366 pairs of half siblings, and 752 pairs of cousins. Little evidence was found of genotype-environment interactions. (SLD)

Claims little factual evidence exists for proposition that child rearing styles and family environments are formative of personality traits. Contends nonintellectual traits seem to be determined instead by genetic influences and relatively specific environmental influences, most of which are particularly tied to the family or parental treatments.…

Used data from sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine how parental education moderated the genetic and environmental contributions to variation in verbal IQ. Found that the variance estimate for heritability was greater than that for shared environment for the whole sample. Both estimates were moderated…

Determinants of Schaefer's (1965) three dimensions of perceived parenting (Acceptance vs. Rejection, Psychological Control vs. Psychological Autonomy, and Firm vs. Lax Control) were investigated by administering a shortened Children's Reports of Parental Behavior Inventory to adolescent twins. The sample consisted of 46 pairs of identical twins…

Investigated genetic and environmental contributions to relationship between family and school environment and depressed mood; also potential sex differences in genetic and environment contributions to variation in and covariation between family connectedness, school connectedness, and depressed mood. Subjects were 2,302 adolescent sibling pairs.…

IQ scores from five kinship categories of 7- to 12-year-olds were analyzed into genetic and environmental components. The common environmental effects were larger for older children than younger children. Overall, the Genetic and Common Environment Sources each accounted for approximately 40% of the IQ variability in the data. (Author/LMO)

To demonstrate the value of behavioral genetic analysis for developing social theory, the origins of delinquent behavior were studied in 265 pairs of twins. Results show that causal sequences leading to delinquency are traceable to individual differences in genes. These findings, however, do not make sociological research irrelevant. (KH)

Parents who were identical twins, fraternal twins, or adopted siblings completed questionnaires assessing attitudes toward parenting and specific parenting practices, the emotional atmosphere of the home, and parental personality. Model-fitting results implicated modest genetic effects on affect-related aspects of parenting, such as parental…

This book examines socialization science, which is the empirical effort to understand how children acquire traits from their families and cultures. This work proposes that one part of the family influence process--broad differences in family environments, except for those that are neglectful, abusive, or without opportunity--may exert little…

Examined influences on children's behavior problems in households defined by marital status and sibling relatedness. Found that genetic influences accounted for 81 to 94 percent of mean-level difference in behavior problems between two-parent/full sibling, and the mother-only/half sibling groups. Shared environmental influences accounted for 67 to…

The research described in this article addressed the question of why siblings commonly have different developmental outcomes despite their common beginnings. The studies analyzed behavioral development, especially through examination of deviant behaviors and intellectual development, by tracing siblings' different life histories. The work is based…

Siblings are far more likely to be different than alike in personality and psychopathology. Different genes and different environmental experiences can account for why one sibling becomes mentally ill and another is not affected. Environmental experiences play a much greater role in sibling differentiation than has been previously recognized.…