Self-Esteem, Negative Emotionality, and Depression as a Common Temperamental Core: A Study of Mid-Adolescent Twin Girls

ABSTRACT We tested the structure and magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on the overlap among self-esteem, negative emotionality, and major depression symptoms in adolescent girls ( N =706) from the Minnesota Twin Family Study. Genetic and environmental influences on all three operated via a general, heritable factor. Genetic influences explained the majority of overlap among the three constructs, as well as most of the variance in self-esteem and negative emotionality. Genetic influences on depression were more modest and largely due to genetic factors specific to depression. These findings support the theory that self-esteem, depression, and neuroticism represent aspects of a common temperamental core. The interrelations among the three constructs in mid-adolescence is consistent with their interrelations in adulthood.     

Adolescent psychopathy features: 6-year temporal stability and the prediction of externalizing symptoms during the transition to adulthood

This study investigated the 6-year stability and predictive validity of adolescent psychopathy features during the transition to young adulthood. It represents one of the longest outcome studies of youth psychopathy to date, and therefore addresses a primary criticism of the research area (i.e., lack of demonstrated associations between child and adult psychopathy features). Recruited participants were 475 males enrolled in the Minnesota Twin and Family Study who had completed a research-based measure of psychopathy features consisting of separate emotional detachment (or affective) and antisocial tendencies (or behavioral) subscales. These psychopathy features and various externalizing symptoms (i.e., conduct problems, impulsivity, and substance use disorder) were assessed through rating scales and structured diagnostic interview at an intake assessment (ages 16-18) and 6-year follow-up. Consistent with prediction, adolescent psychopathy features displayed moderate stability across the transition from adolescence to adulthood [intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) = 0.40-0.41]. The antisocial tendencies subscale was uniquely related to most externalizing symptoms both in adolescence and in adulthood, whereas the emotional detachment subscale showed appropriate discriminant validity in its lack of association with externalizing symptoms. These findings suggest that psychopathy features are relatively stable from adolescence to adulthood and provide possible insights into the development and maintenance of externalizing difficulties during the adult transition.     

Socioeconomic status and school grades: Placing their association in broader context in a sample of biological and adoptive families

SES has long interested researchers investigating school achievement. Its effects are often addressed by studying predictors of achievement in economically disadvantaged samples living primarily in biological families, confounding genetic and environmental influences. Little is known about SES's purely environmental effects. We measured them in 617 adoptive and biological families, adjusting for sample restriction of SES range. Controlling for gender, parenting, parental expectations for educational attainment (PEEA), IQ, engagement in school, and genetic and shared environmental influences on sibling pairs, SES still made a small but significant nonshared environmental contribution to school grades. IQ, PEEA, and SES had collinear associations with school grades, as did engagement and parenting. The associations of IQ and engagement with school grades were largely independent of each other. The link between PEEA and IQ was stronger in adoptive than biological offspring. We discuss the implications of these findings.     

Personality Trait Change Across Late Childhood to Young Adulthood: Evidence for Nonlinearity and Sex Differences in Change

We explored patterns of self‐reported personality trait change across late childhood through young adulthood in a sample assessed up to four times on the lower order facets of Positive Emotionality, Negative Emotionality (NEM), and Constraint (CON). Multilevel modelling analyses were used to describe both group‐ and individual‐level change trajectories across this time span. There was evidence for nonlinear age‐related change in most traits, and substantial individual differences in change for all traits. Gender differences were detected in the change trajectories for several facets of NEM and CON. Findings add to the literature on personality development by demonstrating robust nonlinear change in several traits across late childhood to young adulthood, as well as deviations from normative patterns of maturation at the earliest ages. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Familial prevalence and coaggregation of schizotypy indicators: a multitrait family study

Schizophrenic probands (n = 17), their first-degree relatives (n = 61), and medically and psychiatrically screened normal control subjects (n = 18) were studied with structured interviews for DSM-III Axis I disorders and schizotypal personality disorder, questionnaire measures of schizotypy, measures of smooth-pursuit eye movement dysfunction, and attention dysfunction. Schizophrenic subjects scored abnormally on essentially all measures. Relatives differed significantly from control subjects on most measures. Correlational analyses indicate that many characteristics tested in these measures run together in families. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that a single vulnerability dimension or typology, presumably in part genetically transmitted, may account for phenotypically distinct abnormalities. These traits, taken together, may have joint usefulness for identifying persons with a predisposition to schizophrenia.     

P300 amplitude, externalizing psychopathology, and earlier- versus later-onset substance-use disorder

P300 amplitude predicts substance use or disorder by age 21. Earlier- versus later-onset substance disorders may reflect different levels of an externalizing psychopathology dimension. P300 in adolescence may not be as strongly related to later-onset substance problems as it is to earlier-onset ones. In the present study, visual P300 amplitude was measured at age 17 in a community-representative sample of young men. Substance and externalizing disorders were assessed at approximately ages 17, 20, and 24. Earlier-onset (by age 20) substance disorder was associated with higher rates of externalizing disorders than were later-onset problems. P300 amplitude was reduced in subjects with earlier-onset substance disorders, relative to later-onset and disorder-free subjects. Amplitude was also reduced in subjects with an externalizing disorder but no substance disorder. Earlier-onset subjects had reduced P300, even in the absence of an externalizing disorder. The results could not be attributed to a concurrent disorder or to recent substance use at the time of the P300 recording. The findings are consistent with P300 indexing an externalizing spectrum. Earlier-onset substance disorders are more strongly related to P300 and externalizing than are later-onset problems.     

Personality traits and the development of nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug disorders: prospective links from adolescence to young adulthood

The personality traits constraint (CN) and negative emotionality (NE) have been more (CN) or less (NE) consistently associated with alcoholism. The authors examined the association of personality at age 17 with timing of onset and with prospective prediction of nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug disorders 3 years later in a twin sample (569 females; 432 males). Earlier onset of alcohol and drug disorders (by age 17) was related to significantly lower CN compared with later onsets (by age 20); high NE was related to either onset. NE, as well as CN, uniquely predicted new onsets of all 3 types of substance use disorders by follow-up, with preexisting substance disorders taken into account. Personality traits confer generalized risk for developing any substance disorder, though some traits are more strongly linked with some substance disorders than with others.     

Continuity and change in psychopathic traits as measured via normal-range personality: a longitudinal-biometric study

The discriminant validity of the interpersonal-affective and social deviance traits of psychopathy has been well documented. However, few studies have explored whether these traits follow distinct or comparable developmental paths. The present study used the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (A. Tellegen, in press) to examine the development of the psychopathic traits of Fearless Dominance (i.e., interpersonal-affective) and Impulsive Antisociality (i.e., social deviance) from late adolescence to early adulthood in a longitudinal-epidemiological sample of male and female twins. Results from mean- and individual-level analyses revealed stability in Fearless Dominance from late adolescence to early adulthood, whereas Impulsive Antisociality declined over this developmental period. In addition, biometric findings indicated greater genetic contributions to stability in these traits and greater nonshared environmental contributions to their change over time. Collectively, these findings suggest distinct developmental trends for psychopathic traits from late adolescence to early adulthood.     

Symptom-based subfactors of DSM-defined conduct disorder: evidence for etiologic distinctions

Past research investigating the structure of conduct disorder (CD) symptoms has provided evidence of a phenotypic distinction between aggressive and rule-breaking subfactors of CD. However, evidence of etiologic distinctions between these subfactors has not been reported to date. In the current study, the authors investigated this issue in a sample of 1,151 male twins who were 17 years of age. The results indicate that aggressive and rule-breaking CD subfactors have both common and distinct etiologic influences, with shared environmental influences playing a significant role in rule-breaking behaviors. The authors discuss implications of these findings for the assessment and treatment of CD.