Thought Problems from Adolescence to Adulthood: Measurement Invariance and Longitudinal Heritability
Open Access
- 18 June 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Behavior Genetics
- Vol. 42 (1), 19-29
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-011-9478-x
Abstract
This study investigates the longitudinal heritability in Thought Problems (TP) as measured with ten items from the Adult Self Report (ASR). There were ~9,000 twins, ~2,000 siblings and ~3,000 additional family members who participated in the study and who are registered at the Netherlands Twin Register. First an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to examine the underlying factor structure of the TP-scale. Then the TP-scale was tested for measurement invariance (MI) across age and sex. Next, genetic and environmental influences were modeled on the longitudinal development of TP across three age groups (12–18, 19–27 and 28–59 year olds) based on the twin and sibling relationships in the data. An exploratory factor analysis yielded a one-factor solution, and MI analyses indicated that the same TP-construct is assessed across age and sex. Two additive genetic components influenced TP across age: the first influencing TP throughout all age groups, while the second arises during young adulthood and stays significant throughout adulthood. The additive genetic components explained 37% of the variation across all age groups. The remaining variance (63%) was explained by unique environmental influences. The longitudinal phenotypic correlation between these age groups was entirely explained by the additive genetic components. We conclude that the TP-scale measures a single underlying construct across sex and different ages. These symptoms are significantly influenced by additive genetic factors from adolescence to late adulthood.Keywords
This publication has 57 references indexed in Scilit:
- Sex differences in the behavior of children with the 22q11 deletion syndromePsychiatry Research, 2009
- The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the CBCL-Bipolar Phenotype Are Not Useful in Diagnosing Pediatric Bipolar DisorderJournal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 2009
- Genetic Influences on Thought Problems in 7-Year-Olds: A Twin-Study of Genetic, Environmental and Rater EffectsTwin Research and Human Genetics, 2008
- Assessment of generalized anxiety disorder diagnostic criteria in the National Comorbidity Survey and Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders.Psychological Assessment, 2008
- Categorical and dimensional aspects of co-morbidity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2007
- Item factor analysis: Current approaches and future directions.Psychological Methods, 2007
- An Empirical Comparison of Information-Theoretic Selection Criteria for Multivariate Behavior Genetic ModelsBehavior Genetics, 2004
- Implications of Absence of Measurement Invariance for Detecting Sex Limitation and Genotype by Environment InteractionTwin Research, 2004
- Problem Behavior in Early and Middle Childhood: An Initial Behavior Genetic AnalysisJournal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1995
- Estimating the Dimension of a ModelThe Annals of Statistics, 1978