To Know and be Known: Genetic Similarity for Neuroticism in Families and Reported Relationship Quality.

• In Event: Matches and Mismatches, Developmentally Informative and Sometimes Surprising!

Abstract

Aim: To explore the influence of genetic similarity for neuroticism in reported quality of mother-child and mother-father relationships. Such understanding could provide insight into the role of genetic similarity in close relationships
Method: Molecular genetic data in 4704 mothers, fathers and children in the ALSPAC study were used to derive the proportion of similarity between mother and child and mother and father for genetic variants associated with neuroticism which is a key personality linked to emotional sensitivity and mental health risk. The association between genetic similarity scores and mother’s reported enjoyment and conflict within the parenting relationship (age 0-3) was explored.
Results: For a 1 SD increase in similarity in parent and child between genetic variants associated with neuroticism there was a 0.15 SD point (95% CI 0.003 to 0.50, p=0.046) increase in maternal reported enjoyment in their relationship there was evidence this may be greater where mother and child were both liable for high neuroticism. There was a similar pattern of results within similarity for genetic variants linked to neuroticism between mothers and fathers, and mother and child and the quality of the mother-father intimate partner relationship.
Implications: The results highlight how phenotypic variation linked to genetic liability in one individual, may be influenced by the genetic liability of those around them. In other words parenting and intimate partner relationships were explained not by one or the others genetic score but rather their combination. The associations between genetic similarity and parental enjoyment were small and explain only a small proportion of the variance. Thus, other parental and child factors, both genetic and environmental, will also be important in explaining variance in parenting and intimate partner relationships. Nonetheless, these explorative findings present an intriguing mechanism by which combined genetic liability might influence the family relationships.

Authors

• Rebecca Marie Pearson, Manchester Metropolitan University
  Presenting Author

• Tim Cadman, University of Bristol

• Iryna Culpin, University of Bristol

• Ilaria Constantini, University of Bristol

• Miguel Cordero, Universidad de Chile

• Marc H Bornstein, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD/NIH)

• Alex Kwong, University of Bristol

• Hannah Jones, University of Bristol

• Hannah Sallis, University of Bristol