Abstract
Previous reviews of the literature have suggested that shared environmental effects may be underestimated in adoption studies because adopted individuals are exposed to a restricted range of family environments. A sample of 409 adoptive and 208 non-adoptive families from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS) was used to identify the environmental dimensions on which adoptive families show greatest restriction and to determine the effect of this restriction on estimates of the adoptive sibling correlation. Relative to non-adoptive families, adoptive families experienced a 41% reduction of variance in parent disinhibitory psychopathology and an 18% reduction of variance in socioeconomic status (SES). There was limited evidence for range restriction in exposure to bad peer models, parent depression, or family climate. However, restriction in range in parent disinhibitory psychopathology and family SES had no effect on adoptive-sibling correlations for delinquency, drug use, and IQ. These data support the use of adoption studies to obtain direct estimates of the importance of shared environmental effects on psychological development.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aitken AC (1934) Note on the selection from a multivariate normal population. Proc Edinburgh Math Soc B 4:106–110
Baumrind D (1991) The influence of parenting styles on adolescent competence and substance use. J Early Adolesc 11:56–95
Baumrind D (1993) The average expectable environment is not good enough: a response to Scarr. Child Dev 64:1299–1317
Bouchard TJ, McGue M (2003) Genetic and environmental influences on human psychological differences. J Neurobiol 54:4–45
Bouchard TJJ, Lykken DT, McGue M, Segal N, Tellegen A (1990) Sources of human psychological differences: the Minnesota Study of Twins reared apart. Science 250:223–228
Buchanan J, McGue M, Keyes M, Elkins I, Iacono WG (2006) Characterization of shared environmental influences on adolescent behavior: Evidence from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study. Paper presented at the Behavior Genetics Association Annual Meeting, Storrs, Connecticut
Caldwell BM, Bradley RM (1978) Home observation for measurement of the environment. University of Arkansas, Little Rock
Cicchetti D (1996) Child maltreatment: implications for developmental theory and research. Human Dev 39:18–39
Cloninger CR, Sigvardsson S, Bohman M, von Knorring AL (1982) Predisposition to petty criminality in Swedish adoptees: II. Cross-fostering analysis of gene–environment interactions. Arch Gen Psychiatry 39:1242–1247
Collins WA, Maccoby EE, Steinberg L, Hetherington EM, Bornstein MH (2000) Contemporary research on parenting: the case for nature and nurture. Am Psychol 55:218–232
Dohrenwend BP, Levav I, Shrout PE, Schwartz S, Naveh G, Link BG et al (1992) Socioeconomic status and psychiatric disorders: the causation–selection issue. Science 255:946–952
Elkins IJ, McGue M, Iacono WG (1997) Genetic and environmental influences on parent–son relationships: evidence for increasing genetic influence during adolescence. Dev Psychol 33(2):351–363
Fergusson DM, Lynskey M, Horwood LJ (1995) The adolescent outcomes of adoption: a 16-year longitudinal study. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 36:597–615
Furman W, Buhrmester D (1985) Children’s perceptions of the qualities of sibling relationships. Child Dev 56:448–461
Gibson HB (1967) Self-report delinquency among school boys and their attitudes to police. Br J Soc Clin Psychol 20:303–315
Han C, McGue MK, Iacono WG (1999) Lifetime tobacco, alcohol, and other substance use in adolescent Minnesota twins: univariate and multivariate behavioral genetic analyses. Addiction 7:981–993
Harris JR (1995) Where is the child’s environment? A group socialization theory of development. Psychol Rev 102:458–489
Harris JR (1998) The nurture assumption: why children turn out the way they do. Bloomsbury, London
Horn JM, Loehlin JC, Willerman L (1979) Intellectual resemblance among adoptive and biological relatives: The Texas Adoption Project. Behav Genet 9:177–201
Iacono WG, Carlson SR, Taylor J, Elkins IJ, McGue M (1999) Behavioral disinhibition and the development of substance use disorders: Findings from the Minnesota Twin Family Study. Dev Psychopathol 11:869–900
Jackson JF (1993). Human behavioral genetics, Scarr’s theory, and her views on interventions: critical review and commentary on their implications for African American children. Child Dev 64:1318–1332
Kaufman AS (1990) Assessing adolescents and adult intelligence. Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA
Krueger RF, Hicks BM, McGue M (2001) Altruism and antisocial behavior: independent tendencies, unique personality correlates, distinct etiologies. Psychol Sci 12:397–402
Lahey BB, Hartdagen SE, Frick PJ, McBurnett K, Connor R, Hynd GW (1998) Conduct disorder: parsing the confounded relation to parental divorce and antisocial personality. J Abnorm Psychol 97:334–337
Levanthal T, Brooks-Gunn J (2000) The neighborhoods they live in: the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. Psychol Bull 126:309–337
Loehlin JC, Horn JM (2000) Stoolmiller on restriction of range in adoption studies: a comment. Behav Genet 30(3):245–247
Loehlin JC, Nichols RC (1976) Heredity, environment, and personality: a study of 850 sets of twins. University of Texas Press, Austin
Lyons MJ, True WR, Eisen SA, Goldberg J, Meyer JM, Faraone SV et al (1995) Differential heritability of adult and juvenile antisocial traits. Arch Gen Psychiatry 52(11):906–915
Maccoby EE (1992) The role of parents in socialization of children: an historical overview. Dev Psychol 28:1006–1017
Maes HH, Woodard CE, Murrelle L, Meyer JM, Silberg JL, Hewitt JK et al (1999) Tobacco, alcohol and drug use in eight- to sixteen-year-old twins: the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. J Stud Alcohol 60(3):293–305
McGue M, Bouchard TJ (1984) Adjustment of twin data for the effects of age and sex. Behav Genet 14(4):325–343
McGue M, Bouchard TJJ, Iacono WG, Lykken DT (1993) Behavioral genetics of cognitive ability: a life span perspective. In Plomin R, McClearn GE (eds) Nature, nurture and psychology. American Psychological Association, Washington DC, pp 59–76
McGue M, Elkins I, Walden B, Iacono WG (2005) Perceptions of the parent–adolescent relationship: a longitudinal investigation. Dev Psychol 41:971–984
McGue M, Lykken DT (1992) Genetic influence on risk of divorce. Psychol Sci 3:368–373
McGue M, Sharma A, Benson P (1996) The effect of common rearing on adolescent adjustment: evidence from a U.S. adoption cohort. Dev Psychol 32:604–613
Morrison DF (1976) Multivariate statistical methods. McGraw-Hill, New York
Neale MC, Boker SM, Xie G, Maes HH (1999) Mx: Statistical modeling , 5th edn. Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
Petrill SA, Saudino K, Cherny SS, Emde RN, Hewitt JK, Fulker DW et al (1997) Exploring the genetic etiology of low general cognitive ability from 14 to 36 months. Dev Psychol 33:544–548
Plomin R, Daniels D (1987) Why are children in the same family so different from one another? Behav Brain Sci 10:1–60
Plomin R, DeFries JC (1985) Origins of individual differences in infancy. Academic Press, New York
Plomin R, DeFries JC, McClearn GE, McGuffin P (2000) Behavioral Genetics, 4th edn. Worth Publishers, New York
Plomin R, Fulker DW, Corley R, DeFries JC (1997) Nature, nurture and cognitive development from 1 to 16 years. Psychol Sci 8:442–447
Plomin R, Reiss D, Hetherington EM, Howe GW (1994) Nature and nurture: genetic contributions to measures of the family environment. Dev Psychol 30:32–43
Reiss D, Neiderhiser JM, Hetherington M, Plomin R (2000) The relationship code: deciphering genetic and social patterns in adolescent development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Reiss D, Plomin R, Hetherington EM, Howe GW, Rovine M, Tryon A et al (1994) The separate world of teenage siblings: an introduction to the study of the nonshared environment and adolescent development. In: Hetherington EM, Reiss D, Plomin R (eds) Separate social worlds of siblings: the impact of nonshared environment on development. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ
Robins LM, Baber T, Cottler LB (1987) Composite international diagnostic interview: expanded substance abuse module. Authors, St. Louis
Rosenthal R, Rosnow RL (1975) The volunteer subject. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rowe dC (1994) The limits of family influence: genes, experience and behavior. Guilford Press, New York
Ruggles S, Sobek M, Alexander T, Fitch CA, Goeken R, Hall PK et al (2004) Integrated public use Microdata series: Version 3.0. University of Minnesota Population Center, Minneapolis, MN [Machine-readable database; http://www.ipums.org]
Rutter M, Pickles A, Murray R, Eaves LJ (2001) Testing hypotheses on specific causal effects on behavior. Psychol Bull 127:291–324
Scarr S (1992) Developmental theories for the 1990s: development and individual differences. Child Dev 63:1–19
Spanier G (1976) Measuring dyadic adjustment. J Marriage Fam 38:15–28
Spitzer RL, Williams JBW, Gibbon M (1987) Structured clinical interview for DSM-III-R. Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York
Spotts EL, Neiderhiser JM, Towers H, Hansson K, Lichtenstein P, Cederblad M et al (2004) Genetic and environmental influences on marital relationships. J Fam Psychol 18:107–119
Stoolmiller M (1998) Correcting estimates of shared environmental variance for range restriction in adoption studies using a truncated multivariate normal model. Behav Genet 28:429–441
Stoolmiller M (1999) Implications of restricted range of family environments for estimates of heritability and nonshared environment in behavior-genetic adoption studies. Psychol Bull 125:392–409
Turkheimer E, Waldron M (2000) Nonshared environment: a theoretical, methodological, and quantitative review. Psychol Bull 126:78–108
Walden B, McGue M, Iacono WG, Burt SA, Elkins I (2004) Identifying shared environmental contributions to early substance use: the respective roles of peers and parents. Dev Psychol 113(3):440–450
Acknowledgments
Supported in part by USPHS Grants # AA11886 and MH066140.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Edited by Irwin Waldman
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McGue, M., Keyes, M., Sharma, A. et al. The Environments of Adopted and Non-adopted Youth: Evidence on Range Restriction From the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS). Behav Genet 37, 449–462 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-007-9142-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-007-9142-7