Genetic Influences on the Interactionist Model of Socioeconomic Development: Incorporating Polygenic Scores for Educational Attainment Into Developmental Research Using the Family Transitions Project (FTP)

Genetic and environmental factors account for variability in a range of developmental outcomes, including socioeconomic status (SES). The challenge is to find ways to incorporate genetic information based on studies using biologically related family members (i.e., studies not involving twins). To ad...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 2021-02, Vol.57 (2), p.180-190
Main Authors: Donnellan, M. Brent, Martin, Monica J., Senia, Jennifer M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Success
Adolescents
Correlation
Educational Attainment
Educational Attainment Level
Educational Status
Environmental aspects
Environmental factors
Environmental Influences
Family
Family (Sociological Unit)
Family Members
Family Relations
Female
Genetic factors
Genetics
Human
Humans
Individual Development
Life Changes
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Nature Nurture
Parent Child Relationship
Parents
Relatives
Scores
Siblings
Social Class
Socioeconomic development
Socioeconomic factors
Socioeconomic Status
Socioeconomics
Test Construction
Twin studies
Twins - genetics
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Summary:Genetic and environmental factors account for variability in a range of developmental outcomes, including socioeconomic status (SES). The challenge is to find ways to incorporate genetic information based on studies using biologically related family members (i.e., studies not involving twins). To address this issue, we computed polygenic scores associated with educational attainment (Lee et al., 2018) for the Family Transitions Project (e.g., R. D. Conger & Conger, 2002) and incorporated them into the model tested by R. D. Conger, Martin, and Masarik, (2021). Polygenic scores correlated with observed educational attainment for all relevant members of the Family Transitions Project. Moreover, polygenic scores were correlated with many of the other constructs in the R. D. Conger et al. (2021) model, pointing to the relevance of genetic factors for process models of SES attainment. At the same time, the primary pathways described by R. D. Conger et al. (2021) remained viable when polygenic scores were included in the analyses, suggesting that the environmental pathways predicted by the interactionist model (e.g., R. D. Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010) are still tenable. The current study thereby illustrates how genetic information can be included in tests of developmental models to clarify SES attainment across generations.
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/dev0000901