Familial influences on television viewing and aggression: A sibling study

Abstract

Familial influences on aggressive behavior and TV viewing were investigated in a survey of adolescent siblings. Same‐sex siblings resembled one another in aggression (brothers, r = 0.59; sisters, r = 0.52) and in their exposure to violent TV programs; opposite‐sex siblings were dissimilar. Within individuals, the frequency of watching crime and action programs correlated nonsignificantly with aggression. Two other variables, however, were associated with aggression: identification with aggression and aggression consequences. These relationships also held up between families (BF, covariance of sibling' averages) and within families (WF, covariance of sibling' differences). The latter WF relationship indicated that one sibling was typically the more extreme on both aggression and its correlate than a brother or sister. These results were interpreted in light of behavioral genetic data that suggest substantial genetic influences, few common environmental influences, and large within‐family environmental influences on personality development.

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…In contrast, resemblance between adopted children and their adoptive parents is fully due to the environment that the parents have provided. Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family 26 , 27 . Because biological siblings, like dizygotic twins, share half of their genes, sibling resemblance on a trait suggests the influence of genetic factors along with some shared environmental influences.…”

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…In contrast, resemblance between adopted children and their adoptive parents is fully due to the environment that the parents have provided. Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family 26 , 27 . Because biological siblings, like dizygotic twins, share half of their genes, sibling resemblance on a trait suggests the influence of genetic factors along with some shared environmental influences.…”

Nurture might be nature: Cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family (e.g. Petersen & Lange, 2020;Rowe & Herstand, 1986).…”

The Heritability and Genetic Correlates of Mobile Phone Use: A Twin Study of Consumer Behavior

“…There is a crucial distinction here between species-typical, complex genetic adaptations (which cannot arise overnight) versus genetic variants that influence individual differences (which could immediately influence responses to new technology) (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001;Keller & Miller, 2006). Previous behavior genetics studies have already found genetic influences on how often people use other evolutionarily novel technologies, including viewing television (Plomin, Corley, Defries, & Fulker, 1990;Rowe & Herstand, 1986;Sherry, 2001) and reading books (Friend et al, 2009;Harlaar et al, 2007;Martin et al, 2009) -just as pharmacogenomics studies have found substantial genetic influences on people's responsiveness to recently discovered psychiatric drugs for depression and schizophrenia (Daly, 2010). Also, personality traits known to be heritable influence usage patterns for every communication medium analyzed so far, including television, movies, music, art, books, email, online gaming, social networking sites, and chat rooms (Anolli et al, 2005;Chamorro-Premuzic et al, 2009;Finn, 1997;Hertel et al, 2008;Jeng & Teng, 2008;Kingston et al, 2009;Kraaykamp & van Eijck, 2005;Krcmar & Kean, 2005;Landers & Lounsbury, 2006;McManus & Furnham, Geoffrey Miller, Gu Zhu, Margaret J. Wright, Narelle K. Hansell, and Nicholas G. Martin 2006;Persegani et al, 2002;Ross et al, 2009;Sherry, 2001;Shim & Paul, 2007).…”

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…In contrast, resemblance between adopted children and their adoptive parents is fully due to the environment that the parents have provided. Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family 26 , 27 . Because biological siblings, like dizygotic twins, share half of their genes, sibling resemblance on a trait suggests the influence of genetic factors along with some shared environmental influences.…”

Nurture might be nature: Cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family (e.g. Petersen & Lange, 2020;Rowe & Herstand, 1986).…”

The Heritability and Genetic Correlates of Mobile Phone Use: A Twin Study of Consumer Behavior

“…There is a crucial distinction here between species-typical, complex genetic adaptations (which cannot arise overnight) versus genetic variants that influence individual differences (which could immediately influence responses to new technology) (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001;Keller & Miller, 2006). Previous behavior genetics studies have already found genetic influences on how often people use other evolutionarily novel technologies, including viewing television (Plomin, Corley, Defries, & Fulker, 1990;Rowe & Herstand, 1986;Sherry, 2001) and reading books (Friend et al, 2009;Harlaar et al, 2007;Martin et al, 2009) -just as pharmacogenomics studies have found substantial genetic influences on people's responsiveness to recently discovered psychiatric drugs for depression and schizophrenia (Daly, 2010). Also, personality traits known to be heritable influence usage patterns for every communication medium analyzed so far, including television, movies, music, art, books, email, online gaming, social networking sites, and chat rooms (Anolli et al, 2005;Chamorro-Premuzic et al, 2009;Finn, 1997;Hertel et al, 2008;Jeng & Teng, 2008;Kingston et al, 2009;Kraaykamp & van Eijck, 2005;Krcmar & Kean, 2005;Landers & Lounsbury, 2006;McManus & Furnham, Geoffrey Miller, Gu Zhu, Margaret J. Wright, Narelle K. Hansell, and Nicholas G. Martin 2006;Persegani et al, 2002;Ross et al, 2009;Sherry, 2001;Shim & Paul, 2007).…”

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…In contrast, resemblance between adopted children and their adoptive parents is fully due to the environment that the parents have provided. Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family 26 , 27 . Because biological siblings, like dizygotic twins, share half of their genes, sibling resemblance on a trait suggests the influence of genetic factors along with some shared environmental influences.…”

Nurture might be nature: Cautionary tales and proposed solutions

“…Another way to examine the rearing environment while partially controlling for genetic confounding is to use non-twin biological siblings within a family (e.g. Petersen & Lange, 2020;Rowe & Herstand, 1986).…”

The Heritability and Genetic Correlates of Mobile Phone Use: A Twin Study of Consumer Behavior

“…There is a crucial distinction here between species-typical, complex genetic adaptations (which cannot arise overnight) versus genetic variants that influence individual differences (which could immediately influence responses to new technology) (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001;Keller & Miller, 2006). Previous behavior genetics studies have already found genetic influences on how often people use other evolutionarily novel technologies, including viewing television (Plomin, Corley, Defries, & Fulker, 1990;Rowe & Herstand, 1986;Sherry, 2001) and reading books (Friend et al, 2009;Harlaar et al, 2007;Martin et al, 2009) -just as pharmacogenomics studies have found substantial genetic influences on people's responsiveness to recently discovered psychiatric drugs for depression and schizophrenia (Daly, 2010). Also, personality traits known to be heritable influence usage patterns for every communication medium analyzed so far, including television, movies, music, art, books, email, online gaming, social networking sites, and chat rooms (Anolli et al, 2005;Chamorro-Premuzic et al, 2009;Finn, 1997;Hertel et al, 2008;Jeng & Teng, 2008;Kingston et al, 2009;Kraaykamp & van Eijck, 2005;Krcmar & Kean, 2005;Landers & Lounsbury, 2006;McManus & Furnham, Geoffrey Miller, Gu Zhu, Margaret J. Wright, Narelle K. Hansell, and Nicholas G. Martin 2006;Persegani et al, 2002;Ross et al, 2009;Sherry, 2001;Shim & Paul, 2007).…”