Abstract
This study tested implications of new genetic discoveries for understanding the association between parental investment and children’s educational attainment. A novel design matched genetic data from 860 British mothers and their children with home‐visit measures of parenting: the E‐Risk Study. Three findings emerged. First, both mothers’ and children’s education‐associated genetics, summarized in a genome‐wide polygenic score, were associated with parenting—a gene–environment correlation. Second, accounting for genetic influences slightly reduced associations between parenting and children’s attainment—indicating some genetic confounding. Third, mothers’ genetics were associated with children’s attainment over and above children's own genetics, via cognitively stimulating parenting—an environmentally mediated effect. Findings imply that, when interpreting parents’ effects on children, environmentalists must consider genetic transmission, but geneticists must also consider environmental transmission.
Highlights
Running head: USING DNA TO STUDY PARENTAL INVESTMENT Parents devote a great deal of time and effort to ensuring their children’s educational success
Mothers’ and children’s education polygenic scores were correlated (β=.51 [95%CI .46, .56], p
Without controlling for genetics, children exposed to greater cognitive stimulation, more warm, sensitive parenting, less household chaos and a safer, tidier home environment went on to complete more education
Summary
Running head: USING DNA TO STUDY PARENTAL INVESTMENT Parents devote a great deal of time and effort to ensuring their children’s educational success. Gene-environment correlations in child development complicate the interpretation of socialization research (Scarr & McCartney, 1983) They raise the possibility that genetic influences confound associations between parenting and children’s educational attainment. Confounding could occur if parents’ education-associated genetics shape their parenting and are passed on to their children in whom they influence children’s educational attainment. Gene-environment correlations do not necessarily lead to confounding Another possibility is that the portion of parenting that is genetically influenced still affects children’s educational attainment. The findings suggest that parents’ genetics influence children’s educational outcomes via environments parents create This possibility has been referred to as ‘genetic nurture’ (Kong et al, 2018). It implies that treating genetics as only a confounding influence on associations between parenting and child outcomes may leave behavioral scientists with an incomplete account of parenting effects on child development
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