Estimating the Heritability of Experiencing Child Maltreatment in an Extended Family Design

Authors

Katharina Pittner
Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg
Lenneke R. A. Alink
Renate S. M. Buisman
Lisa J. M. van den Bergo
Laura H. C. G. C. Compier-de Block
Alexandra Voorthuis
Bernet M. Elzinga
Jolanda Lindenberg
Marieke S. Tollenaar
Marielle Linting
Vincent P. Diego, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Marinus H. van Ijzendoorn

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2019

Abstract

Child-driven genetic factors can contribute to negative parenting and may increase the risk of being maltreated. Experiencing childhood maltreatment may be partly heritable, but results of twin studies are mixed. In the current study, we used a cross-sectional extended family design to estimate genetic and environmental effects on experiencing child maltreatment. The sample consisted of 395 individuals (225 women; M _age = 38.85 years, range_age = 7–88 years) from 63 families with two or three participating generations. Participants were oversampled for experienced maltreatment. Self-reported experienced child maltreatment was measured using a questionnaire assessing physical and emotional abuse, and physical and emotional neglect. All maltreatment phenotypes were partly heritable with percentages for h ² ranging from 30% (SE = 13%) for neglect to 62% (SE = 19%) for severe physical abuse. Common environmental effects (c ²) explained a statistically significant proportion of variance for all phenotypes except for the experience of severe physical abuse (c ² = 9%, SE = 13%, p = .26). The genetic correlation between abuse and neglect was ρ_g = .73 (p = .02). Common environmental variance increased as socioeconomic status (SES) decreased (p = .05), but additive genetic and unique environmental variances were constant across different levels of SES.

Comments

© The Author(s) 2019. Original published version available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559519888587

Recommended Citation

Pittner, K., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Alink, L. R. A., Buisman, R. S. M., van den Berg, L. J. M., Block, L. H. C. G. C. C., Voorthuis, A., Elzinga, B. M., Lindenberg, J., Tollenaar, M. S., Linting, M., Diego, V. P., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2020). Estimating the Heritability of Experiencing Child Maltreatment in an Extended Family Design. Child Maltreatment, 25(3), 289–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559519888587

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

First Page

289

Last Page

299

Publication Title

Child Maltreatment

DOI

10.1177/1077559519888587

Academic Level

faculty

Mentor/PI Department

Office of Human Genetics