Genetic probes of three theories of maternal adjustment: I. Recent evidence and a model

Studies focusing on genetic and social influences on maternal adjustment wi ll illumine mother's marriage, parenting, and the development of psychopath ology in her children. Recent behavioral genetic research suggests mechanis ms by which genetic and social influences determine psychological developme nt and adjustment. First, heritable, personal attributes may influence indi viduals' relationships with their family members. These genetically influen ced family patterns may amplify the effects of adverse, heritable personal attributes on adjustment. Second, influences unique to siblings may be the most important environmental determinants of adjustment. We derive three hy potheses on maternal adjustment from integrating these findings from geneti c studies with other contemporary research on maternal adjustment. First, m other's marriage mediates the influence of her heritable, personal attribut es on her adjustment. Second, mother's recall of how she was parented is pa rtially genetically influenced, and both her relationships with her spouse and her child mediate the impact of these genetically influenced representa tions on, her current adjustment. Third, characteristics of mother's spouse are important influences on difference between her adjustment and that of her sister's. These sibling-specific influences are unrelated to mother's h eritable attributes. The current article develops this model, and the compa nion article describes the Twin Mom Study that was designed to test it as w ell, as its first findings. Data from this study can illumine the role of f amily process in the expression of genetic influence and lead to specific f amily interventions designed to offset adverse genetic influences.