THE DEVELOPMENTAL INTERFACE BETWEEN NATURE AND NURTURE - A MUTUAL INFLUENCE MODEL OF CHILD ANTISOCIAL-BEHAVIOR AND PARENT BEHAVIORS

Using an adoption design to collect data on biological and adoptive pa rents of children adopted at birth, this study explored a possible mec hanism through which heritable characteristics of adopted children evo ke adoptive parent responses and lead to reciprocal influences between adoptive parent and adopted child behavior. Participants were 25 male and 20 female adoptees, 12-18 years of age, having either a biologica l parent with substance abuse/dependency or antisocial personality or a biological parent with no such history. The study found that psychia tric disorders of biological parents were significantly related to chi ldren's antisocial/hostile behaviors and that biological parents' psyc hiatric disorders were associated with adoptive parents' behaviors. Th is genotype-environment association was largely mediated by adoptees' antisocial/hostile behaviors. Results also suggest that the adoptee's antisocial/hostile behavior and adoptive mother's parenting practices affect each other.