Genetic and environmental influences on stressful life events and their associations with executive functions in young adulthood: A longitudinal twin analysis
Open accessAbstract
Although stress is frequently considered an environmental factor, dependent stressful life events (SLEs)--stressors that result from one's actions or behaviors--may in fact be evoked by a genetic liability. It has been suggested that dependent SLEs may be partially caused by poor executive function (EFs), higher-level cognitive abilities that enable individuals to implement goal-directed behavior. We investigated the possibility of genetic and environmental overlap between SLEs and EFs in a longitudinal twin study. We found high genetic stability in the number of dependent SLEs from age 23 to age 29, suggesting that the number of dependent stressors show persistence across time due to their genetic etiology. In addition, there was a nominally significant negative genetic correlation between a Common EF latent factor and dependent SLEs at age 23. The genetic stability of dependent SLEs and association with Common EF provides insight into how some behaviors may lead to persistent stress.
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Longitudinally, early EF predicts later dependent SLEs, and both SLE types predict later EF.
“When the direction of association is considered, early EF is longitudinally associated with later dependent SLEs, while both dependent and independent SLEs are longitudinally associated with later EF (Morrison et al., 2021).”
From Family-based care buffers the stress sensitizing effect of early deprivation on executive functioning difficulties in adolescence (2023) · cites this paper as Morrison et al., 2021
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- Authors
- Morrison, C. L., Rhee, S. H., Smolker, H. R., Corley, R. P., Hewitt, J. K., & Friedman, N. P.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Corresponding author
- Morrison, Claire L.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Behavior Genetics
- Published
- 2020-09-21
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 30-44
- ISSN
- 0001-8244 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-3297
- PMC
- PMC7855628
- OpenAlex
- W3087598650
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 1.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Behavior Genetics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH063207)
- National Institute on Aging (AG046938)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA011015)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- life events, executive function, genetic stability, genetic correlation, early adulthood, genetic susceptibility
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Female, Humans, Life Change Events, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Stress, Psychological, Twins, Young Adult, Executive Function, Gene-Environment Interaction
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