Poster #26 - The heritability of internalizing symptoms in early adolescence: Moderation by family cultural values

• In Event: Poster Session 02

Abstract

The manifestation of childhood internalizing symptoms are a result of complex gene-environment interactions (Boomsma & Martin, 2002). Genetically-informed work suggests that aspects of parenting could buffer genetic vulnerability for internalizing symptoms (Leve et al., 2009). It is also important to consider the broader family context, as children are active contributors to their family environment (Wilson & Rhee, 2022) and have the ability to form their own value systems (Döring, et al., 2016). Phenotypic research with Latinx youth suggests that familism, defined as cultural values emphasizing support, loyalty, and obligation to the family, provide children with strong and supportive family networks that can, in turn, reduce the risk for youth internalizing symptoms (Cahill et al., 2021). However, it is unknown whether family cultural values interact with genetic risk for childhood internalizing symptoms. Using a large, national sample of twin children, this study examined whether child-reported family cultural values moderated the heritability of parent-reported internalizing symptoms concurrently in late childhood. We hypothesized that the genetic etiology of internalizing symptoms would be moderated by youth cultural values (Tomlinson et al., 2021).
The sample comprised 10414 children (Mage=12.00 years) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. Twin analyses comprised 1389 twin children. Children completed the Youth Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (Knight et al., 2010), which was a mean composite of familism subscales of support (close family relationships), obligation (obligation to provide tangible support to family), and referents (use of family to define oneself. Parents reported on their children’s internalizing symptoms using the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 2009), which was calculated as a raw sum score of depression, anxiety, and somatic subscales. Covariates included age and sex (McGue & Bouchard, 1984).
Descriptive statistics, phenotypic bivariate correlations, and twin intraclass correlations are found in Table 1. Univariate twin analyses showed that additive genetic (28%) and nonshared environmental (72%) influences explained the variance in youth cultural values whereas individual differences in internalizing symptoms could be attributed to additive genetic (38%), shared (27%), and nonshared environmental (35%) influences. Although not phenotypically correlated, moderated heritability models (Table 2) suggest that increases in youth cultural values increase the heritability of children’s internalizing symptoms.
This study highlights that late childhood is a salient period where children are beginning to form their own value systems surrounding the family. Genetic and environmental influences explained individual differences in youth cultural values and internalizing symptoms, concurrent with previous research (Knopik et al., 2016; Rea-Sandin, 2022). We also found that as youth cultural values increased, the heritability of internalizing symptoms increased. Although this is the first study to explicitly examine the role of cultural values on the heritability of childhood internalizing symptoms, this work contrasts other genetically-informed studies suggesting parenting and strong family connections could buffer genetic vulnerability for youth problem
behaviors (Leve et al., 2009). Longitudinal analyses are needed, as internalizing symptoms are shown to increase with the onset of puberty (Mendle, 2014). Together, this study highlights the importance for behavior genetic research to consider how culture and biology influence human development.

Authors

• Gianna Rea-Sandin, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author

• SYLIA WILSON, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities