Relationships between parenting and adolescent over time: Genetic and environmental contributions

The predictive association between parenting and adolescent adjustment has been assumed to be environmental; however, genetic and environmental contri butions have not been examined. This article represents one effort to exami ne these associations in which a genetically informative design was used. P articipants were 395 families with adolescent siblings who participated in the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development (D. Reiss et al., 1994) project at 2 times of assessment, 3 years apart. There were 5 sibling type s in 2 types of families: 63 identical twins, 75 fraternal twins, and 58 fu ll siblings in nondivorced families and 95 full, 60 half, and 44 geneticall y unrelated siblings in stepfamilies. Results indicate that the cross-lagge d associations between parental conflict-negativity and adolescent antisoci al behavior and depressive symptoms can be explained primarily by genetic f actors. These findings emphasize the need to recognize and examine the impa ct that adolescents have on parenting and the contribution of genetic facto rs to developmental change.