1-152 - Examining the role of Paternal Influences on Offspring Psychopathology

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Compared with studies examining the influence of maternal influences on offspring psychopathology, research examining paternal influences have been relatively sparse in the literature. Although research has begun to recognise the role of fathers in influencing the course of offspring psychopathology, specific risk and resilience processes are not well understood. It is therefore necessary to clarify these risk and resilience processes influencing the course of offspring psychopathology by examining them in the context of the quality of the mother-father relationship, by testing potential moderators and/or mechanisms, and by considering the possibility of reverse causation, while controlling for possible genotype-environment confounding.

The aim of the symposium is to examine paternal influences on the course of offspring psychopathology, across different developmental stages from childhood to adolescence, using a number of complementary high-risk and genetically-sensitive research designs. The first presentation uses a UK based cross-sectional adoption-at-conception (IVF) sample and a US based longitudinal adoption-at-birth sample to examine the relative role of the mother-child and father-child relationships on children’s symptoms of psychopathology. The second presentation uses genotyped data from a US based sample of recently divorced fathers examining father-child interaction in a sample of recently divorced fathers of young children. The third presentation makes use of a UK based longitudinal high-risk study of offspring of parents with recurrent depression to examine the role of paternal emotional support in promoting resilience in adolescent offspring, and to test the direction of these effects.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Gordon T Harold, University of Sussex

Discussant

• Michael E Lamb, Cambridge University

Individual Presentations

• Examining Family Relationship Influences on Children’s Psychopathology Using Novel Genetically-sensitive Research Designs - Presenting Author: Gordon T Harold, University of Sussex; Leslie Leve, Oregon Social Learning Center; Jenae M Neiderhiser, Pennsylvania State University; Daniel S. Shaw, Univ of Pittsburgh; Misaki Natsuaki, University of California, Riverside; David Reiss, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

• Environmental Moderators of Fathers’ Genetic Risk on Coercive Parenting, Substance Use, and Child Behavior Problems - Presenting Author: David DeGarmo, University of Oregon; Leslie Leve, Oregon Social Learning Center; Jenae M Neiderhiser, Pennsylvania State University; Deb Grove, The Pennsylvania State University, College Park, Pennsylvania

• The role of Fathers in Promoting Resilience in Offspring of Depressed Mothers. - Presenting Author: Liam Mahedy, Cardiff University; Gordon T Harold, University of Sussex; Anita Thapar, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Section, Institute of Psychological Medicine & Clinical Neurosciences, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics & Genomics, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff; FRANCES GARDNER, University of Oxford; Barbara Maughan, King's College London; Ricardo Araya, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK; Stephan Collishaw, Cardiff University