Gene-environment interplay in the association between pubertal timing and delinquency in adolescent girls.

Abstract

Early pubertal timing places girls at elevated risk for a breadth of negative outcomes, including involvement in delinquent behavior. While previous developmental research has emphasized the unique social challenges faced by early maturing girls, this relation is complicated by genetic influences for both delinquent behavior and pubertal timing, which are seldom controlled for in existing research. The current study uses genetically informed data on 924 female-female twin and sibling pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to (1) disentangle biological versus environmental mechanisms for the effects of early pubertal timing and (2) test for gene-environment interactions. Results indicate that early pubertal timing influences girls’ delinquency through a complex interplay between biological risk and environmental experiences. Genes related to earlier age at menarche and higher perceived development significantly predict increased involvement in both non-violent and violent delinquency. Moreover, after accounting for this genetic association between pubertal timing and delinquency, the impact of non-shared environmental influences on delinquency are significantly moderated by pubertal timing, such that the non-shared environment is most important among early maturing girls. This interaction effect is particularly evident for non-violent delinquency. Overall, results suggest early maturing girls are vulnerable to an interaction between genetic and environmental risks for delinquent behavior.

Contextualizing pubertal development: The combination of sexual partners' age and girls' pubertal development confers risk for externalizing but not internalizing symptoms among girls in therapeutic day schools

“…Notably, we do not find a direct link between early puberty and externalizing, in keeping with some previous studies (Negriff & Trickett, 2010) but not others (Caspi et al, 1993). Reasons for this may include the way externalizing was measured, given that previous research suggests that early puberty predicted only non-violent forms of delinquency (Harden & Mendle, 2012); and that research with clinical samples such as ours (Negriff & Trickett, 2010) and racially diverse samples such as ours (Deardorff et al, 2013; Obeidallah, Brennan, Brooks-Gunn, & Earls, 2004) with similarly aged girls does not find a direct effect of early puberty on externalizing symptoms. Finally, we did not find evidence that the presence of older boyfriends alone predicts either internalizing or externalizing symptoms, corroborating previous studies (Javdani et al, 2014) suggesting that the influence of older boyfriends does not persist past early adolescence (Haydon & Halpern, 2010).…”

Elucidating the Mechanisms Linking Early Pubertal Timing, Sexual Activity, and Substance Use for Maltreated Versus Nonmaltreated Adolescents

“…Lastly, this study identified pathways of risk for early-maturing maltreated youth. There is evidence that the same genes that influence the timing of puberty also predict risk behavior and that environmental experience may modify the expression of these genes[39]. Particular attention should be paid to this vulnerable population with efforts to increase the positive socialization of these youth.…”

Social status strategy in early adolescent girls: Testosterone and value-based decision making

“…Other changes in sex hormones also differentially influence girls. Increased levels of estrogen have been shown to augment the reactivity of the reward system in women (Dreher et al, 2007), and menarche has been associated with earlier initiation and greater frequency of a range of unhealthy behaviors including substance use (Westling et al, 2008) and delinquent behavior (Harden and Mendle, 2012). Although evidence is mixed, some research suggests that sex steroids (estradiol, testosterone) may be differentially associated with risk behavior and social processing in adolescent girls and boys (e.g., CastellanosRyan et al, 2013).…”