Are there sex differences in the etiology of youth antisocial behavior?

Burt, S. Alexandra; Slawinski, Brooke L.; Klump, Kelly L.

doi:10.1037/abn0000324

Cited by 21 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Next, given the power hungry nature of these models, we also regressed sex out of the child CP data prior to analysis. Fortunately, this decision is in keeping with prior meta-analyses arguing against sex differences in heritability estimates for child CP (Burt, 2009 a ), as well as recent work indicating the absence of joint etiologic moderation of CP by sex and neighborhood disadvantage (Burt et al ., 2018). Next, our CP data were log-transformed prior to analysis to adjust for positive skew, which can either artefactually inflate or suppress evidence of GxE.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do neighborhood social processes moderate the etiology of youth conduct problems?

et al. 2019

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BackgroundPrior work has robustly suggested that social processes in the neighborhood (i.e. informal social control, social cohesion, norms) influence child conduct problems (CP) and related outcomes, but has yet to consider how these community-level influences interact with individual-level genetic risk for CP. The current study sought to do just this, evaluating neighborhood-level social processes as etiologic moderators of child CP for the first time.MethodsWe made use of two nested samples of child and adolescent twins within the Michigan State University Twin Registry (MSUTR): 5649 families who participated in in the Michigan Twins Project (MTP) and 1013 families who participated in the Twin Study of Behavioral and Emotional Development (TBED-C). The neighborhood social processes of informal social control, social cohesion, and norms were assessed using neighborhood sampling techniques, in which residents of each twin family's neighborhood reported on the social processes in their neighborhood. Standard biometric GxE analyses evaluated the extent to which they moderated the etiology of CP.ResultsThe ‘no moderation’ model provided the best fit to the data in nearly all cases, arguing against neighborhood social processes as etiologic moderators of youth CP.ConclusionsThe neighborhood social processes evaluated here do not appear to exert their effects on child CP via etiologic moderation. The documented links between neighborhood social processes and child CP are thus likely to reflect a different etiologic process. Possibilities include environmental main effects of neighborhood social processes on child CP, or genotype-environment correlations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do neighborhood social processes moderate the etiology of youth conduct problems?

et al. 2019

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“…The TBED-C includes a population-based arm, recruited via birth records ( N = 528 families; monozygotic n = 260, dizygotic n = 268), and an at-risk arm, also recruited via birth records but additionally identified as living in neighborhoods with higher-than-average levels of poverty ( N = 502 at-risk families; monozygotic n = 166, dizygotic n = 336). Detailed information regarding the design, recruitment procedures, and participation rate of the TBED-C is available elsewhere (Burt, Klump, Gorman-Smith, & Neiderhiser, 2016; Burt, Slawinski, & Klump, 2018). All procedures were approved by the institutional review board of Michigan State University.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twin Differences in Harsh Parenting Predict Youth’s Antisocial Behavior

et al. 2021

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In the current study, we leveraged differences within twin pairs to examine whether harsh parenting is associated with children’s antisocial behavior via environmental (vs. genetic) transmission. We examined two independent samples from the Michigan State University Twin Registry. Our primary sample contained 1,030 families (2,060 twin children; 49% female; 6–10 years old) oversampled for exposure to disadvantage. Our replication sample included 240 families (480 twin children; 50% female; 6–15 years old). Co-twin control analyses were conducted using a specification-curve framework, an exhaustive modeling approach in which all reasonable analytic specifications of the data are interrogated. Results revealed that, regardless of zygosity, the twin experiencing harsher parenting exhibited more antisocial behavior. These effects were robust across multiple operationalizations and informant reports of both harsh parenting and antisocial behavior with only a few exceptions. Results indicate that the association between harsh parenting and children’s antisocial behavior is, to a large degree, environmental in origin.

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“…Page 15 and/or E differ, such that they are more important in one sex versus the other Although the genes and environments influencing ASB do not vary across sex, they account for more variance (i.e., matter more) in one sex versus the other. In scholastic contexts, for example, ASB is more genetic in origin in girls than in boys (Burt et al, 2018).…”

Section: Author Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When the original meta-analytic data analyzed in Burt (2009a) were additionally disambiguated by informant (Burt et al, 2018), however, the conclusion changed: rather than no quantitative sex differences in etiology at all, the data indicated that there were no sex differences in etiology when ASB was assessed using maternal informant-reports of child behavior. When examining teacher informant-reports of child ASB, however, ASB was more shared environmental in origin in boys than in girls, but more genetic in origin in girls than in boys -a conclusion that persisted to an independent twin sample not included in the original meta-analysis (Burt et al, 2018). Such findings are thought to reflect the 'attribution bias context model', whereby mothers and teachers are exposed to different slices of the child's behavior and thus develop different opinions/attributions regarding the same child (De Los Reyes and Kazdin, 2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These studies have uniformly suggested that ASB is equally heritable in males and females (Burt, 2009a, b, Rhee andWaldman, 2002). When the original meta-analytic data analyzed in Burt (2009a) were additionally disambiguated by informant (Burt et al, 2018), however, the conclusion changed: rather than no quantitative sex differences in etiology at all, the data indicated that there were no sex differences in etiology when ASB was assessed using maternal informant-reports of child behavior. When examining teacher informant-reports of child ASB, however, ASB was more shared environmental in origin in boys than in girls, but more genetic in origin in girls than in boys -a conclusion that persisted to an independent twin sample not included in the original meta-analysis (Burt et al, 2018).…”

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How should we understand the absence of sex differences in the genetic and environmental origins of antisocial behavior?

et al. 2019

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Available twin-family data on sex differences in antisocial behavior (ASB) simultaneously suggest that ASB is far more prevalent in males than in females, and that its etiology (i.e. the effects of genes, environments, hormones, culture) does not differ across sex. This duality presents a conundrum: How do we make sense of mean sex differences in ASB if not via differences in genes, environments, hormones, and/or cultures? The current selective review and critique explores possible contributions to these seemingly incompatible sets of findings. We asked whether the presence of sex differences in behavior could be smaller than is typically assumed, or confined to a specific set of behaviors. We also asked whether there might be undetected differences in etiology across sex in twin-family studies. We found little evidence that bias or measurement invariance across sex account for phenotypic sex differences in ASB, but we did identify some key limitations to current twin-family approaches. These included the questionable ability of qualitative sex difference analyses to detect gender norms and prenatal exposure to testosterone, and concerns regarding specific analytic components of quantitative sex difference analyses. We conclude that the male preponderance in ASB is likely to reflect a true sex difference in observed behavior. It was less clear, however, that the genetic and environmental contributions to ASB are indeed identical across sex, as argued by prior twin-family studies. It is our hope that this review will inspire the development of new, genetically-informed methods for studying sex differences in etiology.

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Are there sex differences in the etiology of youth antisocial behavior?

Cited by 21 publications

References 76 publications

Do neighborhood social processes moderate the etiology of youth conduct problems?

Do neighborhood social processes moderate the etiology of youth conduct problems?

Twin Differences in Harsh Parenting Predict Youth’s Antisocial Behavior

How should we understand the absence of sex differences in the genetic and environmental origins of antisocial behavior?

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