Self‐control and grit are associated with school performance mainly because of shared genetic effects

Kevenaar, Sofieke T.; Dolan, Conor V.; Boomsma, Dorret I.; Bergen, Elsje van

doi:10.1002/jcv2.12159

Cited by 5 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Our results supported for most traits a parsimonious AE model (Table S8), consistent with prior twin research indicating minimal shared-environmental influences on educationally-relevant traits in countries with standardized educational systems like in the Netherlands (Kevenaar et al, 2023). For ADHD-symptoms we found some non-additive genetic effects, potentially due to true dominance effects or contrast effects (raters overestimating the difference between dizygotic co-twins, hence underestimating rDZ; Polderman et al, 2007;Kan et al, 2014).…”

Section: The Acdes Of Educationally-relevant Traitssupporting

confidence: 89%

Co-occurrence and causality among ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia

Bergen¹,

Zeeuw²,

Hart

et al. 2023

Preprint

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ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia are comorbid. Also, the underlying continuous traits are correlated (ADHD symptoms, reading, spelling, and math skills). This may be explained by trait-to-trait causal effects and/or shared genetic and environmental factors. We studied a sample of ≤19,125 twin children and 2,150 siblings from the Netherlands Twin Register, assessed at ages 7 and 10. Children with ADHD were more than 2 times as likely to have a learning disorder and children with one learning disorder were 3-4 times as likely to have the second learning disorder. Still, most children with ADHD, dyslexia, and/or dyscalculia (86%) had just one disorder. Cross-lagged modelling suggested that the trait correlations are due to genetic influences common to all traits, rather than causal influences. Thus, ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia seem to be comorbid due to overlapping genetic risks, rather than causality.

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Section: The Acdes Of Educationally-relevant Traitssupporting

confidence: 89%

Co-occurrence and causality among ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia

Bergen¹,

Zeeuw²,

Hart

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…In contrast to our previous work, which addressed prediction (Kevenaar et al 10 ) the current study addressed causation. Kevenaar et al 10 examined the phenotypic regression relationship of self-control and grit with school performance, and decomposed these into genetic and environmental components.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…In a recent study of Czech school children, Vazsonyi, et al 9 found that self-control predicted school performance (both teacher-rated and grades) while controlling for motivation and intelligence. In a twin study, Kevenaar et al 10 found that self-control and grit together explained 28.4% of the variance in school performance. The decomposition of the phenotypic regression relationship into genetic and environmental components revealed that the phenotypic associations were mainly due to genetic influences common to self-control, grit, and school performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

Kevenaar,

van Bergen,

Oldehinkel

et al. 2023

npj Sci. Learn.

Self Cite

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The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R2 = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance.

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“…We created a sum score across these 8 items, so that higher scores reflect lower self-control. The scale shows good inter-rater and test-retest reliability ( 23 ), and has been applied across several other cohorts ( 25 , 26 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No gene by stressful life events interaction on individual differences in adults’ self-control

Willems,

Raffington,

Ligthart

et al. 2024

Front. Psychiatry

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BackgroundDifficulty with self-control, or the ability to alter impulses and behavior in a goal-directed way, predicts interpersonal conflict, lower socioeconomic attainments, and more adverse health outcomes. Etiological understanding, and intervention for low self-control is, therefore, a public health goal. A prominent developmental theory proposes that individuals with high genetic propensity for low self-control that are also exposed to stressful environments may be most at-risk of low levels of self-control. Here we examine if polygenic measures associated with behaviors marked by low self-control interact with stressful life events in predicting self-control.MethodsLeveraging molecular data from a large population-based Dutch sample (N = 7,090, Mage = 41.2) to test for effects of genetics (i.e., polygenic scores for ADHD and aggression), stressful life events (e.g., traffic accident, violent assault, financial problems), and a gene-by-stress interaction on self-control (measured with the ASEBA Self-Control Scale).ResultsBoth genetics (β =.03 -.04, p <.001) and stressful life events (β = .11 -.14, p <.001) were associated with individual differences in self-control. We find no evidence of a gene-by-stressful life events interaction on individual differences in adults’ self-control.ConclusionOur findings are consistent with the notion that genetic influences and stressful life events exert largely independent effects on adult self-control. However, the small effect sizes of polygenic scores increases the likelihood of null results. Genetically-informed longitudinal research in large samples can further inform the etiology of individual differences in self-control from early childhood into later adulthood and its downstream implications for public health.

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Self‐control and grit are associated with school performance mainly because of shared genetic effects

Cited by 5 publications

References 45 publications

Co-occurrence and causality among ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia

Co-occurrence and causality among ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

No gene by stressful life events interaction on individual differences in adults’ self-control

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