Determinants of Behavior Problems after Divorce

描述（由申请人提供）：负责成人及其后代离婚和调整之间的关联的过程还没有得到很好的理解。离婚家庭的成年人和儿童的行为和心理问题发生率较高，最初被认为是婚姻破裂的后果，但也可能反映了离婚家庭的非随机选择。为了解开这些过程，拟议的研究将利用澳大利亚成年双胞胎及其后代的纵向研究数据。首先，对离婚不和谐的同卵和异卵成年双胞胎的分析将研究遗传和环境过程如何解释离婚个体中日益增加的问题。第二，双胞胎的孩子们的设计将调查的因果关系和选择因素之间的关系负责的婚姻解体和功能在成年后代。第三，拟议的分析将评估家庭和个人特征如何介导与子女适应父母离婚有关的环境和遗传影响。最后，培训机会将提供机会，探讨是否家庭环境控制后代行为问题的遗传表达，使用纵向数据来研究儿童对家庭冲突的反应的发展变化，并采用决策树分析来研究多种风险和保护因素如何相互作用，以影响儿童的发展。拟议中的研究旨在超越简单的家族特征和结果之间的关联，并通过利用遗传信息设计，纵向数据和先进的定量方法来阐明因果机制。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The processes responsible for the association between divorce and adjustment in adults and their offspring are not well understood. The higher rates of behavioral and psychological problems in adults and children from divorced families were originally considered to be consequences of marital disruption, but may also reflect nonrandom selection of families into divorce. In order to disentangle these processes, the proposed research will utilize data from a longitudinal study of Australian adult twins and their offspring. First, analyses of monozygotic and dizygotic adult twins discordant for divorce will examine how genetic and environmental processes account for the increased problems among divorced individuals. Second, the children of twins design will investigate the causal and selection factors responsible for the relation between marital dissolution and functioning in young-adult offspring. Third, the proposed analyses will assess how family and individual characteristics mediate the environmental and genetic influences associated with offspring's adjustment to their parents' divorce. Finally, training opportunities will provide the opportunity to explore whether the family environment controls genetic expression of offspring behavior problems, use longitudinal data to study developmental changes in children's response to family conflict, and employ decision tree analyses to study how multiple risk and protective factors interact to influence child development. The proposed research seeks to move beyond simple associations between familial characteristics and outcomes and elucidate causal mechanisms by utilizing genetically informative designs, longitudinal data, and advanced quantitative methods.