Is etiology in the eye of the beholder? : parent, self, and teacher ratings of behavior problems in early adolescence

• From a phenotypic perspective, research has clearly shown that for ratings of behavior problems, different informants typically do not contribute the same information about the child’s behavior (Achenbach, McConaughy, Howell, 1987, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology,15, 629-650). The present research examines this at the level of etiology. Parent, self, and teacher ratings of internalizing, externalizing, and attention problems were obtained for a sample of young adolescent twins participating in the Swedish Young Twins Study (Females: 214 MZ, 184 DZ pairs; Males: 206 MZ, 163 DZpairs; mean age 513.7 years). For internalizing and attention problems, the phenotypic correlations between raters was moderate ranging from .30 to .52 for males and .25 to .48 for females. However, for internalizing problems, teacher ratings showed less agreement with parent or child ratings ranging from .17 to .27 for males and only .15 to .18 for females. Multivariate model-fitting analyses were conducted separately by sex to explore the extent to which the covariance between raters was due to genetic and environmental influences. For internalizing problems in females, there was significant genetic and nonshared environmental covariance between parent and child ratings. However, genetic and nonshared environmental influences on teacher ratings were specific to the measure. For males, the covariance between raters was due to shared environmental influences. Genetic influences on child and teacher ratings were specific to each rater. For externalizing problems, both females and males showed common and specific genetic influences across raters. Moreover, for females, nonshared environmental influences, and for males, shared environmental influences also contributed to the covariance between parent and child ratings. Finally, the covariance between raters for attention problems was due to both genetic and nonshared environmental influences for females, but only genetic influences for males. In both cases, there were genetic influences that were specific to raters.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Psychology

Psykologi

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