Determinants of Behavior Problems after Divorce

描述（由申请人提供）：成人及其后代离婚与适应之间关系的过程尚不清楚。离婚家庭的成人和儿童出现行为和心理问题的比率较高，最初被认为是婚姻破裂的结果，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，拟议的研究将利用来自澳大利亚成年双胞胎及其后代的纵向研究数据。首先，对离婚不一致的同卵和异卵成年双胞胎的分析将检查遗传和环境过程如何解释离婚个体中增加的问题。其次，双胞胎设计将探讨婚姻破裂与年轻成年后代功能关系的因果和选择因素。第三，提出的分析将评估家庭和个人特征如何调解与后代适应父母离婚相关的环境和遗传影响。最后，培训机会将为探索家庭环境是否控制后代行为问题的遗传表达提供机会，利用纵向数据研究儿童对家庭冲突反应的发展变化，并采用决策树分析研究多种风险和保护因素如何相互作用影响儿童发展。该研究旨在超越家族特征和结果之间的简单关联，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.