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Poster #133 - Behavioral Genetics of Observed Parental Sensitivity and Discipline

Fri, March 22, 2:30 to 3:45pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

The quality of parenting has a tremendous influence on children’s lives. This raises the question of how parenting is shaped. Are differences in parenting behavior mainly accounted for by genetic or environmental factors? We used a child-based twin design to estimate the relative weight of genetic and environmental factors in explaining the variance in two dimensions of parenting, sensitive responsiveness and sensitive discipline.
Positive and negative parenting behaviors have been shown to be transmitted over generations. (Belsky et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2008; Seay, Jahromi, Umaña-Taylor, & Updegraff, 2016), and this transmission may be partly explained by heritability of parenting behavior. Genetically informative studies can provide estimates for the influence of genetic, shared environmental, and non-shared environmental factors on parenting. Child-based twin designs compare parenting behaviors in parents of MZ twins and DZ twins. The extent to which parenting behavior toward MZ twin siblings is more similar than parenting behavior toward DZ twin siblings indicates genetic influences on parenting because of genetically influenced characteristics of the children that affect parenting behaviors. A meta-analysis of 27 studies with child-based twin designs yielded estimates for genetic, shared environmental, and non-shared environmental influences on parental warmth, control, and negativity (Klahr & Burt, 2014). However, most of the child-based twin studies used questionnaire measures of parenting, and may reflect parental ideas about (ideal) parenting rather than their actual parenting behavior.
In the current study we used observational data on parental sensitivity and discipline in 214 parents (428 children, 48% boys, mean age 3.8 years, SD = 0.8). About half of the twins were monozygotic. Parents were observed with each child separately. Sensitivity was observed during a ten minute structured play situation (a computerized version of the Etch-A-Sketch game) using the revised Erickson 7-point rating scales for supportive presence and intrusiveness. Parental discipline was observed in a don’t touch task (Van der Mark, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Van IJzendoorn, 2002). Again, parents performed the task twice, once with each child. The order of the children was random between families. Coders never rated the same parent twice. All intercoder reliabilities were adequate.
Parental sensitivity and sensitive discipline were moderately correlated (.30-.37). Sensitivity and sensitive discipline towards the two twin siblings were also correlated (.55- .60). Genetic modelling revealed that shared and unique environmental factors explained the variance in parental sensitivity, with a negligible role for heritability. However, heritability accounted for around 60% of the variance in parental discipline, implying that children’s genetic makeup may elicit certain parental discipline behaviors, representing child-driven genetic influences on parenting. Non-shared environmental effects, which explained less than half of the variance in both sensitivity and sensitive discipline, reflect differential parental treatment of siblings for reasons unrelated to the children’s genetic similarity, and they include measurement error. Implications of these findings, especially in relation to child-based effects on parental sensitive and harsh discipline, will be discussed.

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