Multivariate behavioral genetic analysis of twin data on scholastic abilities

Abstract

Multivariate behavioral genetic analyses may employ either genetic and environmental correlations or phenotypically standardized covariances to assess the structure of genetic and environmental influences. Correlations and phenotypically standardized covariances answer different questions—correlations are appropriate for understanding the nature of genetic and environmental influences, whereas covariances are approapriate for determining the etiology of phenotypic correlations. The ratio of the genetic and environmental covariances to the phenotypic correlation yields estimates of bivariate heritability and environmentality, measures of the extent to which observed phenotypic covariance is due to genetic and environmental influences. Multivariate analyses of genetic and environmental correlations and covariances are illustrated with twin data on scholastic abilities. Factor analyses of correlations suggest that the same set of genes affects the major areas of academic achievement and that the environmental influences are similarly structured. Analyses of phenotypically standardized covariances indicate that the structures of genetic and environmental influences as they contribute to phenotypic resemblance among scholastic abilities are both similar and simple: there are one general genetic factor and one general environmental factor. Bivariate heritabilities and environmentalities are similar in magnitude, indicating that the strong phenotypic relationship among scholastic abilities is due roughly equally to genetic and environmental influences.