Adolescent, parent, and observer perceptions of parenting: Genetic and environmental influences on shared and distinct perceptions

Agreement among reporters on features of family Life, whether family member s or outside observers, is considered to be low This study, which involved a national sample of 720 families comprised of identical and fraternal twin s, full siblings, half siblings, and biologically unrelated stepsiblings, e xamined the issue of low interrater agreement by decomposing the common and unique variance among parent, child, and observer reports of parenting beh aviors (warmth and negativity) into genetic and environmental factors. Quan titative genetic analyses were employed to decompose the "Social" level of perception (common variance among parents, children, observers), the level of "Family" subculture (common variance only among parents and children), a nd the unique "Individual" level into genetic and environmental components. It was predicted that genetic factors would account for substantial portio ns of the variance at the Social and Family levels; nonshared environmental factors were expected to influence variance unique to child reports; and s hared environmental factors were expected to influence variance unique to p arent reports. A second and related aim of the study was to examine the sub jective-objective dimension of genetic effects on measures of the environme nt. Results of model-fitting analyses generally supported the predictions f or parental warmth and negativity at the Family and Individual levels. At t he Social level, genetic factors were predominant for parental negativity a nd shared environmental factors for parental warmth. The findings are discu ssed in terms of genetically influenced child effects on parenting and meth odological difficulties in constructing latent variables.