ArticlePsychological medicine2018
Shared genetic influences do not explain the association between parent-offspring relationship quality and offspring internalizing problems: results from a Children-of-Twins study.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Parental characteristics and offspring mental health and related outcomes: a systematic review of genetically informative literature.Translational psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Are Children's Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviours at 5 Years Predicted by Maternal Perinatal Depression Trajectory Profiles?Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Maternal adverse childhood experiences and preschool children's behavioral problems: exploring mediation via an adapted measure of adult attachment pattern.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Intergenerational transmission of psychopathology: An examination of symptom severity and directionality.Development and psychopathology · 2022Article
- Parental criticism and adolescent internalising symptoms: using a Children-of-Twins design with power calculations to account for genetic influence.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2022Article
- Maternal and paternal effects on offspring internalizing problems: Results from genetic and family-based analyses.American journal of medical genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric genetics : the official publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics · 2020Article
- Revisiting the Children-of-Twins Design: Improving Existing Models for the Exploration of Intergenerational Associations.Behavior genetics · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAssociations between parenting and child outcomes are often interpreted as reflecting causal, social influences. However, such associations may be confounded by genes common to children and their biological parents. To the extent that these shared genes influence behaviours in both generations, a passive genetic mechanism may explain links between them. Here we aim to quantify the relative importance of passive genetic v. social mechanisms in the intergenerational association between parent-offspring relationship quality and offspring internalizing problems in adolescence.
methodsWe used a Children-of-Twins (CoT) design with data from the parent-based Twin and Offspring Study of Sweden (TOSS) sample [909 adult twin pairs and their offspring; offspring mean age 15.75 (2.42) years], and the child-based Swedish Twin Study of CHild and Adolescent Development (TCHAD) sample [1120 adolescent twin pairs; mean age 13.67 (0.47) years]. A composite of parent-report measures (closeness, conflict, disagreements, expressions of affection) indexed parent-offspring relationship quality in TOSS, and offspring self-reported internalizing symptoms were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) in both samples.
resultsA social transmission mechanism explained the intergenerational association [r = 0.21 (0.16-0.25)] in our best-fitting model. A passive genetic transmission pathway was not found to be significant, indicating that parental genetic influences on parent-offspring relationship quality and offspring genetic influences on their internalizing problems were non-overlapping.
conclusionThese results indicate that this intergenerational association is a product of social interactions between children and parents, within which bidirectional effects are highly plausible. Results from genetically informative studies of parenting-related effects should be used to help refine early parenting interventions aimed at reducing risk for psychopathology.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.