T16 - Social Support And Wellbeing In Adolescence Are Correlated For Genetic, As Well As Environmental, Reasons

Abstract

Background Adolescence is a critical period of biological, cognitive and emotional development. It is important that adolescents maintain good mental health and wellbeing at this stage to ensure a comfortable transition into flourishing adulthood, with better outcomes in a variety of domains such as work, relationships and physical health. At a phenotypic level, social support during adolescence is positively associated with wellbeing. Levels of support from peers and family also predict levels of depressive symptomology. This study aimed to investigate, for the first time, the extent to which genetic and environmental factors mediate the association between wellbeing and support in late adolescence. We present results from a wide range of wellbeing-related traits beyond the commonly investigated life satisfaction; this allows us to conduct a more nuanced exploration of the link between wellbeing and support. Methods A representative subsample of 1215 twin pairs from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) completed questionnaires relating to a variety of wellbeing and support measures at 18 years old. The bivariate twin method uses intraclass correlations from identical and fraternal twins to estimate phenotypic, genetic and environmental correlations between traits. We used structural equation model fitting to estimate model parameters through full information maximum likelihood and to assess goodness of fit of models and submodels. Results Heritability estimates ranged from 22% to 48% for wellbeing and support. Phenotypic correlations between wellbeing constructs and support were all in the expected positive direction. Genetic correlations were moderate to high (mean correlation = 0.54) while the environmental correlations tended to be much lower (mean correlation = 0.22). Shared genetic influences explained a larger proportion of the phenotypic correlations, ranging from 57% to 83%, than environmental factors. The positive and negative affect scales had lower genetic, environmental and phenotypic correlations with support compared to the other wellbeing measures. Life satisfaction and relatedness (a subscale of the Basic Psychological Needs scale) had higher phenotypic correlations with support and both were driven by higher shared environmental correlations. Discussion The strong shared genetic aetiology between wellbeing and support suggests that the two may share a biological pathway that leads to a common cognitive and/or emotional influence on both. For example, genetic influences on personality could affect both. Alternatively, one set of genetic influences could be having pleiotropic effects on the two constructs individually. The pattern of lower correlations of affect with support may be due to their more state-like nature. The higher phenotypic correlation between life satisfaction and support, and relatedness and support, can be explained by a greater overlap in environmental factors. Further research should explore what these environments are. Our findings have implications in the assessment of wellbeing interventions, many of which are designed to increase social interaction. The effectiveness of these interventions are most commonly assessed using life satisfaction. Greater attention should be paid to other wellbeing traits such as gratitude and meaning in life, as different effects may be seen. To ensure adolescents flourish, we will need to focus on improving all these aspects of wellbeing.