Early inherited risk for anxiety moderates the association between fathers’ child-centered parenting and early social inhibition

Abstract

Studies of the role of the early environment in shaping children’s risk for anxiety problems have produced mixed results. It is possible that inconsistencies in previous findings result from a lack of consideration of a putative role for inherited influences moderators on the impact of early experiences. Early inherited influences not only contribute to vulnerabilities for anxiety problems throughout the lifespan, but can also modulate the ways that the early environment impacts child outcomes. In the current study, we tested the effects of child-centered parenting behaviors on putative anxiety risk in young children who differed in levels of inherited vulnerability. We tested this using a parent-offspring adoption design and a sample in which risk for anxiety problems and parenting behaviors were assessed in both mothers and fathers. Inherited influences on anxiety problems were assessed as anxiety symptoms in biological parents. Child-centered parenting was observed in adoptive mothers and fathers when children were 9 months old. Social inhibition, an early temperament marker of anxiety risk, was observed at child ages 9 and 18 months. Inherited influences on anxiety problems moderated the link between paternal child-centered parenting during infancy and social inhibition in toddlerhood. For children whose birth parents reported high levels of anxiety symptoms, greater child-centered parenting in adoptive fathers was related to greater social inhibition 9 months later. For children whose birth parents reported low levels of anxiety symptoms, greater child-centered parenting in adoptive fathers was related to less social inhibition across the same period.

Parental characteristics and offspring mental health and related outcomes: a systematic review of genetically informative literature

“…Parent sociability and offspring positive emotionality 110 , and parent behavioural motivation and offspring social motivation 61 shared common genetic factors, whereas the intergenerational transmission of neuroticism seemed to be environmentally explained 29 . There was no evidence of an environmental association between parental traits, including anxiety 111 , sociability 110 , and smoking during pregnancy 71 , and offspring personality traits such as sociability and temperament. In addition, an extended twin study found no evidence of environmental transmission or rGE underlying associations between parent and offspring dimensional personality traits 112 .…”

“…In addition, an extended twin study found no evidence of environmental transmission or rGE underlying associations between parent and offspring dimensional personality traits 112 . However, two studies observed evocative effects of offspring social behaviours on parenting; adopted offspring’s genetically influenced social behaviours predicted adoptive parent hostility 61 and child-centred parenting 111 . Overall, current and previous literature indicates that relationships between parental factors and offspring personality vary substantially by phenotype, and can involve both genetic and environmental processes.…”

Sex-Specific Transmission of Anxiety Disorders From Parents to Offspring

“…It is more likely that environmental factors, including parenting, shape this disposition into an anxiety disorder or contribute to the child's resilience to anxiety as demonstrated by adoption studies. 43,44 For the youth in our sample who were at a higherthan-average risk for psychopathology, the importance of parenting may have been particularly strong.…”

How family relationships shape children’s extrafamilial relationships: Gene-environment interplay.

“…Sociability has been associated with social competence; high levels of sociability are related to high levels of social competence (Rubin, Hymel, & Mills, 1989). GxE for anxiety-related risk has also been found during infancy and toddlerhood, with the association between adoptive father childcentered parenting during infancy and toddler social inhibition moderated by birth mother anxiety symptoms (Brooker et al, 2016). High levels of adoptive father child-centered parenting during infancy were associated with less toddler social inhibition only when birth mother anxiety symptoms were low.…”