Gender differences in the transmission of risk for antisocial behavior problems across generations

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that children of alcohol use disorder (AUD) parents are more likely to develop alcohol problems as well as antisocial and other behavior problems. The purpose of this study was to examine gender discordance in the effect of early maternal and paternal influences on antisocial behaviors of boys and girls, as well as the environmental factors that moderate the parental effects. Specifically, we examined the effects of childhood and adulthood antisocial behavior of the parents on offspring antisocial behavior as young adults. We also examined whether mothers’ and fathers’ drinking problems when offspring were young children (6–8 years) affected offspring antisocial behavior as young adults (18–21 years). We evaluated 655 children from 339 families in the Michigan Longitudinal Study (MLS), a prospective study of AUD and non-AUD families. Path models were constructed in order to test for the parental contributions to offspring outcomes. We found that both mothers’ and fathers’ antisocial behavior contributed to the children’s young adult antisocial behavior. Only mothers’ drinking problems while their children were little had a significant effect on their sons’ later drinking, but not on their daughters’. These different parental effects suggest that maternal and paternal influences may be mediated by different mechanisms.

Relationship between parents’ mental disorders and socioeconomic status and offspring’s psychopathology: A cross-sectional study

“…Furthermore, this study found that the intergenerational transmission of MD from mothers to offspring had a higher association than the one from fathers to offspring, as previous research suggested [ 50 – 53 ]. This fact could be related with both, social and biological factors.…”

“…Previous research indicates that for mothers, the association between parental and child psychopathology is specific, whereas for fathers it is non-specific: mothers' internalizing problems have been associated to child internalizing problems and the same applied for externalizing problems [49]. Furthermore, existing research, albeit limited, suggests that maternal intergenerational transmission of MD is particularly strong [49][50][51][52][53][54].…”

Transmission of Problem Gambling Between Adjacent Generations

“…Homel and Warren ( 2017 ) found that fathers’ binge drinking raised the risk of adolescent drinking by their daughters but not by their sons. Li et al ( 2017 ) identified influence from mothers’ alcohol use disorder to early adult anti-social behaviour by sons (but not by daughters). To our knowledge, cross-gender transmission of problem gambling has not been noted in previous literature but it has not in fact been actively looked for since most research combines male and female observations in the receiving generation, potentially masking gender-specific transmission.…”

Challenges Faced by Behavioral Genetic Studies: Researchers Perspective from the MENA Region

“…The etiology of antisocial behavior is heterogeneous, so that each condition is different from the other and the notion of the causes of antisocial behavior relies on different factors such as environmental, biological, and genetic factors [ 5 ]. Different biological factors have an implication in developing antisocial behavior, such as brain damage during pregnancy, brain hypoxia in the womb or birth, or neuropsychological dysfunction and psychosocial influences [ 6 ].…”

“…A number of studies also showed that environmental factors have a major role in the creation of antisocial behavior, especially during childhood [ 7 ]. Examples of such factors include; the person exposed to domestic violence and abused in his home, his parents being drug users, was abused during his childhood either sexually, physically, or emotionally or an unstable home environment [ 5 , 7 ].…”