Genetic Influences on Peer and Family Relationships Across Adolescent Development: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Nearly all aspects of human development are influenced by genetic and environmental factors, which conjointly shape development through several gene-environment interplay mechanisms. More recently, researchers have begun to examine the influence of genetic factors on peer and family relationships across the pre-adolescent and adolescent time periods. This article introduces the special issue by providing a critical overview of behavior genetic methodology and existing research demonstrating gene-environment processes operating on the link between peer and family relationships and adolescent adjustment. The overview is followed by a summary of new research studies, which use genetically informed samples to examine how peer and family environment work together with genetic factors to influence behavioral outcomes across adolescence. The studies in this special issue provide further evidence of geneenvironment interplay through innovative behavior genetic methodological approaches across international samples. Results from the quantitative models indicate environmental moderation of genetic risk for coercive adolescent-parent relationships and deviant peer affiliation. The molecular genetics studies provide support for a gene-environment interaction differential susceptibility model for dopamine regulation genes across positive and negative peer and family environments. Overall, the findings from the studies in this special issue demonstrate the importance of considering how genes and environments work in concert to shape developmental outcomes during adolescence.

Reviews in Research on Adolescence: Genres, Trends, and Challenges

“…They are similar to long-identified concerns about research integrity (i.e., high false-positive rates) that have received increasing attention in the social sciences (e.g., see analyses of cognitive science, Ioannidis et al 2014; also see clinical science, Mueller et al 2014; also see developmental science, Duncan et al 2014). They also have been raised in journals dedicated to the adolescent period (Mullineaux and DiLalla 2015;Levesque 2015). However, prior responses to these types of challenges focused on, for example, making proper covariate adjustments, such as has been championed in personality (Hull et al 1992) and social psychological (Yzerbyt et al 2004) research.…”

Noviemeter Diagnostic Test as a Head Circumference Measurement Device for Under-Five Children

“…Parental involvement in monitoring child development is crucial for good child growth and development. [16][17][18] Under-five mothers, cadres, health care workers, and the community must understand the importance of growth and development monitoring. It is necessary to ensure that the parents have the appropriate knowledge and awareness regarding brain development monitoring through routine and guided monitoring to ensure the child's optimum growth.…”

The Relative Roles of Peer and Parent Predictors in Minor Adolescent Delinquency: Exploring Gender and Adolescent Phase Differences

“…However, parents and their offsprings might act in similar ways because of genetic confounding [for a discussion see ( 59 )], an important factor which we did not account for in the current study. In fact genetic factors might also influence what type of peers adolescent choose to socialize with [for a critical review on this topic see: ( 59 , 60 ); see also: ( 61 )]. A related point is that although the peer predictors we investigated might give us more information on delinquent peer influence processes compared to the more traditional method of assessing whether or not friends/peers' delinquency predict adolescents' own delinquency, we did not account for peer selection effects.…”