A BEHAVIORAL-GENETIC PERSPECTIVE ON CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS

Resemblance between parents and their children with respect to certain behaviors (e.g., alcohol use) may result from shared genes or from en vironmental influences that affect all members of a family similarly. Behavioral geneticists have used adoption, twin, and genetic marker st udies to investigate the contributions of genetic as well as shared an d nonshared environmental influences to the increased risk for alcohol ism in children of alcoholics (COA's). These analyses have found that in male COA's, genetic makeup (i.e., genotype) plays an important role in the development of alcoholism; in female COA's, however, the resul ts were less consistent. Moreover, for both men and women, genetic fac tors alone cannot account for their risk of alcoholism. The behavioral -genetic concepts of genotype-environment interaction and genotype-env ironment correlation may provide useful models for the joint influence s of genetic and environmental factors in the development of alcoholis m.