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Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine

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Cloninger and Gottesman (1987) later analyzed data for females to compare with the findings for males. As would be expected, these crime rates in female adoptees are much lower than for males, but the same interactive pattern is present: crime rates in adoptees are greatest when both heritable and environmental influences are present, with this interaction accounting for twice as much crime as is produced by genetic and environmental influences taken alone (see Fig. 2).

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Evidence for gene x environmental interactions is also provided by Cadoret, Cain, and Crowe (1983) who presented data from three adoption studies. When both genetic and environmental factors are present, they account for a greater number of antisocial behaviors than either of these two factors acting alone. Crowe (1974) also found some evidence for a gene x environment interaction in his analysis of adopted-away offspring of female prisoners, although this trend was only marginally significant (p < .10). Cadoret, Yates, Troughton, Woodworth, and Stewart (1995), in an adoption study of 95 male and 102 female adoptees whose parents had either antisocial personality and/or alcohol abuse showed that parental antisocial personality predicted increased aggression and conduct disorders in the offspring, illustrating evidence for genetic processes. But in addition, an adverse adoptive home environment was found to interact with adult antisocial personality in predicting increased aggression in the offspring, that is, a gene x environment interaction effect.

Gene by Environmental Correlation and the Moderating Effects of Demographics

A related but different concept is that of gene--environment correlation. An interesting example is provided in a study by Ge, Conger, Cadoret, and Neiderhiser (1996) who showed that the adopted away offspring of biological parents who had antisocial personality/substance abuse were more likely to show antisocial and hostile behaviors in childhood compared to the adopted away offspring of nonantisocial, nonsubstance abusing parents. This helps establish genetic transmission of childhood antisocial behavior, but in addition an association was found between antisocial behavior in the biological parent and the parenting behaviors of the adoptive parents. This can be explained by a transmission pathway in which the biological parent contributes a genetic predisposition toward antisocial behavior in the offspring. The antisocial offspring then in turn elicit negative parenting behaviors in the adoptive parents. This study provides direct evidence of an "evocative" gene--environment correlation, and suggests that t he association between negative parenting in the adoptive parent and antisocial behavior in the child is mediated by genetic processes. One of the goals of future behavior genetic studies should be to examine the interplay between genes and environment in this fashion further. More generally, there are likely to be future exciting developments with respect to identifying the specific genes, which give rise to the risk factors that shape criminal behavior.

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Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine

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