Citation

Burt SA, Clark DA, Neiderhiser JM. Dev. Psychopathol. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S0954579422000451

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Although it is well known that parental depression is transmitted within families across generations, the etiology of this transmission remains unclear. Our goal was to develop a novel study design capable of explicitly examining the etiologic sources of intergenerational transmission. We specifically leveraged naturally-occurring variations in genetic relatedness between parents and their adolescent children in the 720 families participating in the Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development (NEAD) study, 58.5% of which included a rearing stepparent (nearly always a stepfather).

RESULTS pointed squarely to the environmental transmission of psychopathology between fathers and children. Paternal depression was associated with adolescent depression and adolescent behavior problems (i.e., antisocial behavior, headstrong behavior, and attention problems) regardless of whether or not fathers and their children were genetically related. Moreover, these associations persisted to a subset of "blended" families in which the father was biologically related to one participating child but not to the other, and appeared to be mediated via father-child conflict. Such findings are not only fully consistent with the environmental transmission of psychopathology across generations, but also add to extant evidence that parent-child conflict is a robust and at least partially environmental predictor of adolescent psychopathology.

Language: en

Keywords

adolescent behavior problems; adolescent depression; environment; intergenerational transmission; parental depression