Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:30:51.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nature × nurture: Genetic vulnerabilities interact with physical maltreatment to promote conduct problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2005

SARA R. JAFFEE ,
AVSHALOM CASPI ,
TERRIE E. MOFFITT ,
KENNETH A. DODGE ,
MICHAEL RUTTER ,
ALAN TAYLOR  and
LUCY A. TULLY
SARA R. JAFFEE
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London;
AVSHALOM CASPI
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London; University of Wisconsin–Madison
TERRIE E. MOFFITT
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London; University of Wisconsin–Madison
KENNETH A. DODGE
Affiliation:
Duke University
MICHAEL RUTTER
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London;
ALAN TAYLOR
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London;
LUCY A. TULLY
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London;
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Maltreatment places children at risk for psychiatric morbidity, especially conduct problems. However, not all maltreated children develop conduct problems. We tested whether the effect of physical maltreatment on risk for conduct problems was strongest among those who were at high genetic risk for these problems using data from the E-risk Study, a representative cohort of 1,116 5-year-old British twin pairs and their families. Children's conduct problems were ascertained via parent and teacher interviews. Physical maltreatment was ascertained via parent report. Children's genetic risk for conduct problems was estimated as a function of their co-twin's conduct disorder status and the pair's zygosity. The effect of maltreatment on risk for conduct problems was strongest among those at high genetic risk. The experience of maltreatment was associated with an increase of 2% in the probability of a conduct disorder diagnosis among children at low genetic risk for conduct disorder but an increase of 24% among children at high genetic risk. Prediction of behavioral pathology can attain greater accuracy if both pathogenic environments and genetic risk are ascertained. Certain genotypes may promote resistance to trauma. Physically maltreated children whose first-degree relatives engage in antisocial behavior warrant priority for therapeutic intervention.We are grateful to the Study mothers and fathers, the twins, and the twins' teachers for their participation. Our thanks to Robert Plomin for his contributions; to Thomas Achenbach for generous permission to adapt the CBCL; to Tom Price for comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript; to Hallmark Cards for their support; and to members of the E-Risk team for their dedication, hard work, and insights. The E-Risk Study is funded by Medical Research Council Grant G9806489. Terrie Moffitt is a Royal Society–Wolfson Research Merit Award holder.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 67 - 84
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Achenbach, T. M. (1991a). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4–18 and 1991 profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.
Achenbach, T. M. (1991b). Manual for the Teacher's Report Form and 1991 profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.
Achenbach, T. M., McConaughy, S. H., & Howell, C. T. (1987). Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: Implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity. Psychological Bulletin 101, 213–232.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Andrieu, N., & Goldstein, A. M. (1998). Epidemiologic and genetic approaches in the study of gene–environment interaction: An overview of available methods. Epidemiologic Reviews 20, 137–147.Google Scholar
Arseneault, L., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Taylor, A., Rijsdijk, F. V., Jaffee, S. R., Ablow, J. C., & Measelle, J. R. (2003). Strong genetic effects on cross-situational antisocial behavior among 5-year-old children according to mothers, teachers, examiner-observers, and twins' self-reports. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 44, 832–848.Google Scholar
Barnett, D., Manly, J. T., & Cicchetti, D. (1993). Defining child maltreatment: The interface between policy and research. In D. Cicchetti & S. L. Toth (Eds.), Child abuse, child development, and social policy (pp. 7–73). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Bennett, A. J., Lesch, K. P., Heils, A., Long, J., Lorenz, J., Shoaf, S. E., Champoux, M., Suomi, S. J., Linnoila, M., & Higley, J. D. (2002). Early experience and serotonin transporter gene variation interact to influence primate CNS function. Molecular Psychiatry 7, 118–122.Google Scholar
Bennett, N., Jarvis, L., Rowlands, O., Singleton, N., & Haselden, L. (1996). Living in Britain: Results from the General Household Survey. London: HMSO.
Bird, H. R., Gould, M. S., & Staghezza, B. (1992). Aggregating data from multiple informants in child psychiatry epidemiological research. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 31, 78–85.Google Scholar
Bland, R., & Orn, H. (1986). Family violence and psychiatric disorder. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 31, 129–137.Google Scholar
Browne, M. W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K.A. Bollen & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136–162). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Cadoret, R. J., Cain, C. A., & Crowe, R. R. (1983). Evidence for gene–environment interaction in the development of adolescent antisocial behavior. Behavior Genetics 13, 301–310.Google Scholar
Cadoret, R. J., Yates, W. R., Troughton, E., Woodworth, G., & Stewart, M. A. (1995). Genetic–environmental interaction in the genesis of aggressivity and conduct disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 52, 916–924.Google Scholar
Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J., Craig, I. W., Taylor, A., & Poulton, R. (2002). Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated children. Science 297, 851–854.Google Scholar
Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W., Harrington, H., McClay, J., Mill, J., Martin, J., Braithwaite, A., & Poulton, R. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science 31, 386–389.Google Scholar
Caspi, A., Wright, B. R. E., Moffitt, T. E., & Silva, P. A. (1998). Early failure in the labor market: Childhood and adolescent predictors of unemployment in the transition to adulthood. American Sociological Review 63, 424–451.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Manly, J. T. (2001). Operationalizing child maltreatment: Developmental processes and outcomes [Special Issue]. Development and Psychopathology 13, 1–1048.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Rogosch, F. A. (2001). The impact of maltreatment and psychopathology on neuroendocrine functioning. Development and Psychopathology 13, 783–804.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F. A., Lynch, M., & Holt, K. D. (1993). Resilience in maltreated children: Processes leading to adaptive outcome. Development and Psychopathology 5, 629–647.Google Scholar
De Bellis, M. D. (2001). Developmental traumatology: The psychobiological development of maltreated children and its implications for research, treatment, and policy. Development and Psychopathology 13, 539–564.Google Scholar
DeMaris, A. (1993). Odds versus probabilities in logit equations: A reply to Roncek. Social Forces 71, 1057–1065.Google Scholar
Department of Health. (1989). The Children Act. London: HMSO.
Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (1990). Mechanisms in the cycle of violence. Science 250, 1678–1683.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (1994). Socialization mediators of the relation between socioeconomic status and child conduct problems. Child Development 65, 649–665.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., & Valente, E. (1995). Social information-processing patterns partially mediate the effect of early physical abuse on later conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 104, 632–643.Google Scholar
Eckenrode, J., Zielinski, D., Smith, E., Marcynyszyn, L. A., Henderson, C. R., Jr., Kitzman, H., Cole, R., Powers, J., & Olds, D. L. (2001). Child maltreatment and the early onset of problem behaviors: Can a program of nurse home visitation break the link? Development and Psychopathology 13, 873–890.Google Scholar
Egami, Y., Ford, D., Greenfield, S., & Crum, R. (1996). Psychiatric profile and sociodemographic characteristics of adults who report physically abusing or neglecting their children. American Journal of Psychiatry 153, 921–925.Google Scholar
Evans, W. E., & Relling, M. V. (1999). Pharmacogenomics: Translating functional genomics into rational therapeutics. Science 286, 487–491.Google Scholar
Farrington, D. P. (1995). Crime and physical health: Illnesses, injuries, accidents and offending in the Cambridge Study. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 5, 278.Google Scholar
Hamer, D. (2002). Rethinking behavior genetics. Science 298, 71–72.Google Scholar
Hardin, J., & Hilbe, J. (2001). Generalized linear models and extensions. College Station, TX: Stata Press.
Hill, A. V. S. (1999). Genetics and genomics of infectious disease susceptibility. British Medical Bulletin 55, 401–413.Google Scholar
Jaffee, S. R. (in press). Family violence and parent psychopathology: Implications for children's socioemotional development and resilience. In S. Goldstein & R. Brooks (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children. New York: Kluwer.
Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Taylor, A. (2004). Physical maltreatment victim to antisocial child: Evidence of an environmentally-mediated process. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 44–55.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., & Eaves, L. J. (1986). Models for the joint effect of genotype and environment on liability to psychiatric illness. American Journal of Psychiatry 143, 279–289.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., & Kessler, R. C. (1995). Stressful life events, genetic liability and onset of an episode of major depression in women. American Journal of Psychiatry 152, 833–842.Google Scholar
Lansford, J. E., Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., Crozier, J., & Kaplow, J. (2002). Long-term effects of early child physical maltreatment on psychological, behavioral, and academic problems in adolescence: A 12-year prospective study. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 156, 824–830.Google Scholar
Lumley, T., Diehr, P., Emerson, S., & Chen, L. (2002). The importance of the normality assumption in large public health data sets. American Review of Public Health 23, 151–169.Google Scholar
MacCallum, R. C., Browne, M. W., & Sugawara, H. M. (1996). Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological Methods 1, 130–149.Google Scholar
Manly, J. T., Cicchetti, D., & Barnett, D. (1994). The impact of maltreatment on child outcome: An exploration of dimensions within maltreatment. Development and Psychopathology 6, 121–143.Google Scholar
Manly, J. T., Kim, J. E., Rogosch, F. A., & Cicchetti, D. (2001). Dimensions of child maltreatment and children's adjustment: Contributions of developmental timing and subtype. Development and Psychopathology 13, 759–782.Google Scholar
Martin, N. (2000). Gene–environment interaction and twin studies. In T. D. Spector, H. Snieder, & A. J. MacGregor (Eds.), Advances in twin and sib-pair analysis (pp. 143–150). London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd.
Maynard, R. A. (1997). Kids having kids: Economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
McGee, R., Wolfe, D., & Olson, J. (2001). Multiple maltreatment, attribution of blame, and adjustment among adolescents. Development and Psychopathology 13, 827–846.Google Scholar
McGloin, J. M., & Widom, C. S. (2001). Resilience among abused and neglected children grown up. Development and Psychopathology 13, 1021–1038.Google Scholar
Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Harrington, H., & Milne, B. J. (2002). Males on the life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial pathways: Follow-up at age 26 years. Development and Psychopathology 14, 179–207.Google Scholar
Moffitt, T. E., & E-Risk Study Team. (2002). Teen-aged mothers in contemporary Britain. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 43, 727–742.Google Scholar
Monroe, S. M., & Simons, A. D. (1991). Diathesis–stress theories in the context of life stress research: Implications for depressive disorders. Psychological Bulletin 110, 406–425.Google Scholar
Neale, M. C., & Cardon, L. R. (1992). Methodology for genetic studies of twins and families. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Olds, D. L., Eckenrode, J., Henderson, C. R., Jr., Kitzman, H., Powers, J., Cole, R., Sidora, K., Morris, P., Pettitt, L. M., & Luckey, D. (1997). Long-term effects of home visitation on maternal life course and child abuse and neglect: 15-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Journal of the American Medical Association 278, 637–643.Google Scholar
Ottman, R. (1994). Epidemiologic analysis of gene–environment interaction in twins. Genetic Epidemiology 11, 75–86.Google Scholar
Piacentini, J. C., Cohen, P., & Cohen, J. (1992). Combining discrepant diagnostic information from multiple sources: Are complex algorithms better than simple ones? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 20, 51–63.Google Scholar
Plomin, R., & Crabbe, J. (2000). DNA. Psychological Bulletin 126, 806–828.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Cicchetti, D., Hornung, K., & Reed, A. (2000). Recognizing emotion in faces: Developmental effects of child abuse and neglect. Developmental Psychology 36, 679–688.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., & Sinha, P. (2002). Effects of early experience on children's recognition of facial displays of emotion. Developmental Psychology 38, 784–791.Google Scholar
Potter, L. B., & Mercy, J. A. (1997). Public health perspective on interpersonal violence among youths in the United States. In D. M. Stoff, J. Breiling, & J. D. Maser (Eds.), Handbook of antisocial behavior (pp. 3–11). New York: Wiley.
Price, T. S., Freeman, B., Craig, I., Petrill, S. A., Ebersole, L., & Plomin, R. (2000). Infant zygosity can be assigned by parental report questionnaire data. Twin Research 3, 129–133.Google Scholar
Rogers, W. H. (1993). Regression standard errors in clustered samples. Stata Technical Bulletin 13, 19–23.Google Scholar
Rowe, D. C. (2001). Biology and crime. Los Angeles: Roxbury.
Rutter, M., & Silberg, J. (2002). Gene–environment interplay in relation to emotional and behavioral disturbance. Annual Review of Psychology 53, 463–490.Google Scholar
Sedlak, A. J., & Broadhurst, D. D. (1996). Executive summary of the third national incidence study of child abuse and neglect. Retrieved July 31, 2002, from http: //www.calib.com/nccanch/pubs/statinfo/nis3.cfm#national.
Simonoff, E., Pickles, A., Meyer, J. M., Silberg, J., Maes, H. H. M., Loeber, R., Rutter, M., Hewitt, J. K., & Eaves, L. J. (1997). The Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. Archives of General Psychiatry 54, 801–808.Google Scholar
Smith, C., & Thornberry, T. P. (1995). The relationship between childhood maltreatment and adolescent involvement in delinquency. Criminology 33, 451–481.Google Scholar
StataCorp. (2001). Stata statistical software: Release 7.0. College Station, TX: Stata Corporation.
Stoolmiller, M. (1999). Implications of the restricted range of family environments for estimates of heritability and nonshared environment in behavior–genetic adoption studies. Psychological Bulletin 125, 392–409.Google Scholar
Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (1988). How violent are American families? Estimates from the National Family Violence Resurvey and other studies. In G.T. Hotaling & D. Finkelhor (Eds.), Family abuse and its consequences: New directions in research (pp. 14–36). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Suomi, S. J. (2002). Social and biological mechanisms underlying impulsive aggressiveness in rhesus monkeys. In B.B. Lahey, T. E. Moffitt, & A. Caspi (Eds.), The causes of conduct disorder and serious juvenile delinquency. New York: Guilford Press.
Trouton, A., Spinath, F. M., & Plomin, R. (2002). Twins Early Development Study (TEDS): A multivariate, longitudinal genetic investigation of language, cognition, and behaviour problems in childhood. Twin Research 5, 444–448.Google Scholar
van den Oord, E. J. C. G., Koot, H. M., Boomsma, D. I., Verhulst, F. C., & Orleveke, J. F. (1995). A twin-singleton comparison of problem behaviour in 2–3 year olds. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 36, 449–458.Google Scholar
van den Oord, E. J. C. G., Verhulst, F. C., & Boomsma, D. I. (1996). A genetic study of maternal and paternal ratings of problem behaviors in 3-year-old twins. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105, 349–357.Google Scholar
van der Valk, J. C., Verhulst, F. C., Neale, M. C., & Boomsma, D. I. (1998). Longitudinal genetic analysis of problem behaviors in biologically related and unrelated adoptees. Behavior Genetics 28, 365–380.Google Scholar
Walsh, C., McMillan, H., & Jamieson, E. (2002). The relationship between parental psychiatric disorder and child physical and sexual abuse: Findings from the Ontario Health Supplement. Child Abuse and Neglect 26, 11–22.Google Scholar
Widom, C. S. (1988). Sampling biases and implications for child abuse research. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 58, 260–270.Google Scholar
Widom, C. S. (1989). The cycle of violence. Science 244, 160–166.Google Scholar
Widom, C. S. (1997). Child abuse, neglect, and witnessing violence. In D.M. Stoff, J. Breiling, & J. D. Maser (Eds.), Handbook of antisocial behavior (pp. 159–170). New York: Wiley.
Widom, C. S., & Maxfield, M. G. (2001). An update on the “cycle of violence” (NCJ 184894). Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
Williams, R. L. (2000). A note on robust variance estimation for cluster-correlated data. Biometrics 56, 645–646.Google Scholar