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The Impact of Sleep Duration on Adolescent Development: A Genetically Informed Analysis of Identical Twin Pairs

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Abstract

Recent work provides evidence that reduced sleep duration has detrimental effects on a range of developmentally related outcomes during adolescence. Yet, the potential confounding influence of genetic and shared environmental effects has not been sufficiently addressed. This study addresses this issue by analyzing cross-sectional data from the twin sub-sample of the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health [N ≈ 287 MZ (monozygotic) twin pairs; 50 % male; 22 % Black; mean age = 15.75]. Associations between sleep duration (measured through two different strategies, one tapping number of hours slept at night and the other measuring weeknight bedtimes) and seven outcomes (self-control, depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, body mass index, violent delinquency, non-violent delinquency, and drug use) were estimated. Consistent with prior research, associations between sleep duration and several outcomes were statistically significant when using standard social science analytic methods. Yet, when employing a methodology that accounts for genetic and shared environmental influences, some of these associations were reduced to non-significance. Still, two consistent associations remained in that participants who reported sleeping fewer hours at night (or who reported later bedtimes) exhibited lower levels of self-control and more depressive symptoms. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Included in the depressive symptoms scale was a question asking whether the respondent had “felt that you were too tired to do things.” Due to the obvious overlap between this item and any measure of sleep duration, sensitivity analyses were estimated after removing this item from the depressive symptoms scale. Specifically, the alternative version of the depressive symptoms scale was created by summing across the remaining 17 items. The two depressive symptoms scales correlated at r = .99. No substantive differences emerged when the alternative depressive symptoms scale was used as the dependent variable.

  2. The measures for violent and non-violent delinquency were nearly identical to the measures constructed in prior work using the Add Health data (see Clinkinbeard et al. 2011).

  3. One might reasonably question why no significant effects emerged in the model predicting violent delinquency given that prior work using the first wave of the Add Health data did find significant effects (Clinkinbeard et al. 2011). This point is revisited in the Discussion section of the paper.

  4. Indeed, opposite sign effects (compared to the analysis of the number of hours slept variable) were expected for the analysis of the bedtime variable due to their differential directionality and the fact that they correlated at r = −.32.

  5. Given the relatively small sample size available in the Add Health twin subsample, it was not possible to dummy code hours slept for each individual hour. Further, sleeping 8 or more hours was treated as the reference category since this is the traditional demarcation for adequate sleep (e.g., McKnight-Eily et al. 2011).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Ingrid Kepinski, the anonymous reviewers, and the editor for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This study uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from Grant P01-HD31921 for the current study.

Author Contributions

JCB acquired the data for the analysis, conducted the statistical analysis, drafted portions of the methods, results, and discussion sections, and created the tables; RCM conceived of the study, drafted the introduction and literature review sections of the manuscript, and drafted portions of the discussion section; All authors read, edited, and approved the final manuscript.

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  1. School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45221, USA

    J. C. Barnes

  2. Department of Criminal Justice, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St., PCA-364B, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Ryan C. Meldrum

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Barnes, J.C., Meldrum, R.C. The Impact of Sleep Duration on Adolescent Development: A Genetically Informed Analysis of Identical Twin Pairs. J Youth Adolescence 44, 489–506 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-014-0137-4

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