Siblings and Deviancy: Social & Genetic Influences

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案旨在利用一个独特的兄弟姐妹样本（青少年发展项目中非共享环境的参与者或NEAD），理想地适合于解决兄弟姐妹互动如何为青少年和成年期异常行为的表达提供人际环境的关键问题。尽管行为遗传学研究一致表明，共同的环境对越轨行为的发展有着深远的影响，但很少有人试图分离出这种关联背后的特定社会过程。相反，社会过程研究通常没有从遗传亲缘关系的角度来评估家庭互动。通过将一个综合的编码系统应用于已经收集的青少年遗传信息样本中的兄弟姐妹互动录像，我们建议更好地表征青少年中鼓励越轨行为的特定社会强化模式，并确定社会影响如何调节遗传倾向的表达。我们特别关注的是兄弟姐妹之间的互动，这似乎是青春期一个关键的共同环境因素。我们将通过执行以下具体目标来实现这些总体目标：(1)利用NEAD的遗传信息设计来确定环境和遗传对兄弟姐妹之间社会过程的影响大小，这些社会过程是青少年越轨行为强化的特定因素；(2)采用多变量生物计量模型来确定这些特定的兄弟姐妹之间的社会过程是否部分解释了行为遗传学研究中通常推断的对越轨行为的潜在社会和遗传影响；(3)探索社会影响偏差与遗传相关性之间关联的替代模型（包括概念模型和计算模型），包括调节模型以及对违反双胞胎设计的平等环境假设的检验；(4)通过将预测扩展到其他结果，特别是吸烟和抑郁症状，来检验兄弟姐妹效应模型的特异性。这四个具体目标的实施将填补我们在以下知识方面的重要空白：越轨行为的社会影响、兄弟姐妹对社会发展的影响，以及可能最重要的是，在青少年和成人社会发展中，遗传因素和人际环境之间的相互作用。这些知识可以用来修改预防和干预计划，这些计划通常忽略了兄弟姐妹可能对青春期和成年期异常行为的发展和维持产生的潜在影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks to take advantage of a unique sample of siblings (participants in the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development project or NEAD) ideally suited to address critical issues on how sibling interaction provides an interpersonal context for the expression of deviant behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Although behavioral genetic studies have consistently shown that the shared environment has profound effects on the development of deviancy, there have been few attempts to isolate specific social processes underlying this association. Conversely, social process research has typically not evaluated family interaction from the perspective of genetic relatedness. By applying a comprehensive coding system to already collected videotaped sibling interactions in a genetically informative sample of adolescents, we propose to better characterize specific social reinforcement patterns in adolescence that serve to encourage deviant behavior, and also to determine how social influences may moderate the expression of genetic tendencies. Our specific focus is on sibling interaction, which appears to be a key shared environmental factor in adolescence. We will pursue these overall objectives through the execution of tour specific aims: (1) To utilize the genetically-informative design of the NEAD to determine the effect size of environmental and genetic contributions to social processes between siblings that are specific to reinforcement for deviancy in adolescence; (2) To employ multivariate biometrical models to determine if these specific social processes between siblings explain in part the latent social and genetic influences on deviancy typically inferred in behavioral genetic research; (3) To explore alternative models (both conceptual and computational) for associations between social influences on deviancy and genetic relatedness, including moderation models as well as tests for violations of the Equal Environments Assumption of the twin design; and (4) To test the specificity of the sibling effect model by extending prediction to other outcomes, particularly smoking, and depressive symptoms. The execution of these four specific aims will fill important gaps in our knowledge concerning social effects on deviancy, sibling influence on social development, and, perhaps most importantly, the interplay between genetic factors and interpersonal context in adolescent and adult social development. Such knowledge may be used to modify prevention and intervention programs that typically ignore the potent effects that siblings may have on the development and maintenance of deviant behavior in adolescence and into adulthood.