Prosocial behavior from early to middle childhood: genetic and environmental influences on stability and change.

Prosocial behavior is important for the functioning of society. This study investigates the extent to which environment shared by family members, nonshared environment, and genetics account for children's prosocial behavior. The prosocial behavior of twins (9,424 pairs) was rated by their parents at the ages of 2, 3, 4, and 7 and by their teachers at age 7. For parent ratings, shared environmental effects decreased from .47 on average at age 2 to .03 at age 7, and genetic effects increased from .32 on average to .61. The finding of weak shared environmental effects and large heritability at age 7 was largely confirmed through the use of teacher ratings. Using longitudinal genetic analyses, the authors conclude that genetic effects account for both change and continuity in prosocial behavior and nonshared environment contributes mainly to change.

[1]  R. Plomin,et al.  Nonshared environmental influences on individual differences in early behavioral development: a monozygotic twin differences study. , 2003, Child development.

[2]  R. Plomin.  Behavioral genetics. , 1991, Research publications - Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease.

[3]  G. Greenberg.  The limitations of behavior-genetic analyses: comment on McGue, Elkins, Walden, and Iacono (2005). , 2005, Developmental psychology.

[4]  A. Caspi,et al.  Maternal expressed emotion predicts children's antisocial behavior problems: using monozygotic-twin differences to identify environmental effects on behavioral development. , 2004, Developmental psychology.

[5]  R. Plomin,et al.  Phenotypic "g" Early in Life: On the Etiology of General Cognitive Ability in a Large Population Sample of Twin Children Aged 2-4 Years. , 2003 .

[6]  Thomas J. Bouchard,et al.  Behavioral genetics of cognitive ability: A life-span perspective. , 1993 .

[7]  A. Thapar.  Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families , 1993 .

[8]  L. Behar,et al.  A behavior rating scale for the preschool child. , 1974 .

[9]  L. Cardon,et al.  Association study designs for complex diseases , 2001, Nature Reviews Genetics.

[10]  J. Gibbs,et al.  Parents' use of inductive discipline: relations to children's empathy and prosocial behavior. , 1996, Child development.

[11]  Ervin Staub,et al.  Development and maintenance of prosocial behavior : international perspectives on positive morality , 1984 .

[12]  J. Grusec,et al.  Prosocial and helping behavior. , 2002 .

[13]  R. Goodman.  The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: a research note. , 1997, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[14]  E. Staub.  Positive Social Behavior and Morality: Socialization and Development , 1978 .

[15]  R. Plomin,et al.  Infant zygosity can be assigned by parental report questionnaire data , 2000, Twin Research.

[16]  P. McGuffin,et al.  The development of prosocial behaviour in children and adolescents: a twin study. , 2004, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[17]  N. Pedersen,et al.  Latent growth curve analyses of accelerating decline in cognitive abilities in late adulthood. , 2003, Developmental psychology.

[18]  J. Mcardle,et al.  Structural Equation Models for Evaluating Dynamic Concepts Within Longitudinal Twin Analyses , 2003, Behavior genetics.

[19]  S. Schwartz.  Value Priorities and Behavior: Applying a Theory of Integrated Value Systems , 2001 .

[20]  A. Thapar,et al.  Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families , 1993 .

[21]  J. Strayer,et al.  Empathy, emotional expressiveness, and prosocial behavior , 1996 .

[22]  J. Goodnow,et al.  Household work and the development of concern for others. , 1996 .

[23]  D. Hay,et al.  Prosocial development. , 1994, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[24]  N. Martin,et al.  The genetic and environmental relationship between Cloninger's dimensions of temperament and character. , 2003, Personality and individual differences.

[25]  J. P. Rushton,et al.  The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale , 1981 .

[26]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  The nature of human altruism , 2003, Nature.

[27]  Lilach Sagiv,et al.  Values and work environment: Mapping 32 occupations , 2004 .

[28]  S. Scarr,et al.  How people make their own environments: a theory of genotype greater than environment effects. , 1983, Child development.

[29]  R. Goodman.  A modified version of the Rutter parent questionnaire including extra items on children's strengths: a research note. , 1994, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[30]  Chava E. Tidhar,et al.  The educational impact of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim: A Sesame Street television series to promote respect and understanding among children living in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza , 2003 .

[31]  A. Waterman,et al.  Identity, the Identity Statuses, and Identity Status Development: A Contemporary Statement , 1999 .

[32]  G. Ladd,et al.  Connectedness and autonomy support in parent-child relationships: links to children's socioemotional orientation and peer relationships. , 2000, Developmental psychology.

[33]  R. Plomin.  Genetics and Experience: The Interplay between Nature and Nurture , 1994 .

[34]  R. Plomin,et al.  The Etiology of Behavior Problems in 7-Year-Old Twins: Substantial Genetic Influence and Negligible Shared Environmental Influence for Parent Ratings and Ratings by Same and Different Teachers , 2005, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[35]  G. Kochanska.  Children's Temperament, Mothers' Discipline, and Security of Attachment: Multiple Pathways to Emerging Internalization , 1995 .

[36]  D W Fulker,et al.  Genetic change and continuity from fourteen to twenty months: the MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study. , 1993, Child development.

[37]  N. Eisenberg,et al.  Effects of Rewards on Children's Prosocial Motivation: A Socialization Study , 1989 .

[38]  Mark H. Davis,et al.  The heritability of characteristics associated with dispositional empathy. , 1994, Journal of personality.

[39]  R. Plomin,et al.  PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Parental Discipline and Affection and Children ’ s Prosocial Behavior : Genetic and Environmental Links , 2006 .

[40]  Rosemary Tannock,et al.  The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire overseas: Evaluations and applications of the SDQ beyond Europe , 2004, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

[41]  I. Sigel,et al.  HANDBOOK OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY , 2006 .

[42]  C. Zahn-Waxler,et al.  Empathy and prosocial patterns in young MZ and DZ twins: Development and genetic and environmental influences. , 2001 .

[43]  J. Dunn,et al.  Using the Stepfamily Genetic Design to Examine Gene-Environment Processes in Child and Family Functioning , 2003 .

[44]  R. Pearl.  Children's Understanding of Others' Need for Help: Effects of Problem Explicitness and Type. , 1985 .

[45]  J. Kagan,et al.  Genetic change and continuity from fourteen to twenty months , 1993 .

[46]  T. Banaschewski,et al.  Validation of the parent and teacher SDQ in a clinical sample , 2004, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

[47]  J. Hewitt,et al.  Infancy to early childhood : genetic and environmental influences on developmental change , 2001 .

[48]  Robert Plomin,et al.  Nature, Nurture, and Psychology , 1993 .

[49]  C. Zahn-Waxler,et al.  The development of empathy in twins. , 1992 .

[50]  T. Partridge.  Are genetically informed designs genetically informative? Comment on McGue, Elkins, Walden, and Iacono (2005) and quantitative behavioral genetics. , 2005, Developmental psychology.

[51]  David Warden,et al.  Prosocial children, bullies and victims: An investigation of their sociometric status, empathy and social problem-solving strategies , 2003 .

[52]  J. P. Rushton,et al.  Altruism and aggression: the heritability of individual differences. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[53]  S. Marshall,et al.  Value socialization in a bidirectional context. , 1997 .

[54]  M. Kappelman.  The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart: Coming Together , 2000 .

[55]  M. Owen,et al.  The genetic basis of complex human behaviors. , 1994, Science.

[56]  P. Anderson,et al.  Comparing psychiatric diagnoses generated by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire with diagnoses made by clinicians. , 2004, The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry.

[57]  G. Saucier,et al.  A multivariate analysis of 59 candidate genes in personality traits: the temperament and character inventory , 2000, Clinical genetics.

[58]  R. Plomin,et al.  Twins Early Development Study (TEDS): A Multivariate, Longitudinal Genetic Investigation of Language, Cognition and Behavior Problems in Childhood , 2002, Twin Research.

[59]  K. Matthews,et al.  “Principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others…”: The heritability of empathic concern for others1 , 1981 .

[60]  G. Caprara,et al.  Personality: Individual Differences , 2000 .

[61]  S. Schwartz,et al.  Identity Formation and Parent-Child Value Congruence in Adolescence. , 2004 .

[62]  Peter K. Smith,et al.  Blackwell handbook of childhood social development. , 2004 .

[63]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Positive psychology. An introduction. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[64]  Matt McGue,et al.  Altruism and Antisocial Behavior: Independent Tendencies, Unique Personality Correlates, Distinct Etiologies , 2001, Psychological science.

[65]  J. Bertoncini,et al.  Newborns discriminate the rhythm of multisyllabic stressed words. , 1997 .

[66]  N. Eisenberg,et al.  Relations of Moral Reasoning and Vicarious Emotion to Young Children's Prosocial Behavior toward Peers and Adults. , 1996 .

[67]  R Plomin,et al.  Genotype-environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of human behavior. , 1977, Psychological bulletin.