Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions
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Across a wide range of studies, researchers often conclude that the home environment and children’s outcomes are causally linked. In contrast, behavioral genetic studies show that parents influence their children by providing them with both environment and genes, meaning the environment that parents provide should not be considered in the absence of genetic influences, because that can lead to erroneous conclusions on causation. This article seeks to provide behavioral scientists with a synopsis of numerous methods to estimate the direct effect of the environment, controlling for the potential of genetic confounding. Ideally, using genetically sensitive designs can fully disentangle this genetic confound, but these require specialized samples. In the near future, researchers will likely have access to measured DNA variants (summarized in a polygenic scores), which could serve as a partial genetic control, but that is currently not an option that is ideal or widely available. We also propose a work around for when genetically sensitive data are not readily available: the Familial Control Method. In this method, one measures the same trait in the parents as the child, and the parents’ trait is then used as a covariate (e.g., a genetic proxy). When these options are all not possible, we plead with our colleagues to clearly mention genetic confound as a limitation, and to be cautious with any environmental causal statements which could lead to unnecessary parent blaming.
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Genetic differences are a major confounder in many psychological and social phenomena.
“Genetic differences are a major confounder in many psychological and social phenomena35,36, but until recently this has been hard to account for because single genetic variants have very small effects.”
From The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background (2022) · cites this paper as [36]
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- Authors
- Hart, S. A., Little, C., & van Bergen, E.
- Affiliations
- Florida State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hart, Sara A.
- Venue
- npj Science of Learning
- Published
- 2021-01-08
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 2-2
- ISSN
- 2056-7936 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7794571
- OpenAlex
- W3119402276
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 1 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 4.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- npj Science of Learning (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- ZonMw (531003014)
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (024‐001‐003, 451-15-017)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD095193, P50HD052120)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- genetic confounding, family environment, causal inference, polygenic risk score, gene-environment interaction, parental influence, child development
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