Nature and Nurture During Infancy and Early Childhood

by Robert Plomin , John C. DeFries , David W. Fulker

• ISBN13: 9780521034241
• ISBN10: 0521034248
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Quantitative genetics offers a general theory of the development of individual differences that suggests novel concepts and research strategies: the idea that genetic influences operate in age-to-age change as well as in continuity for example. Quantitative genetics also provides powerful methods to address questions of change and continuity, including model-fitting approaches that test the fit between a specific model of genetic and environmental influences and observed correlations among family members, which are here helpfully introduced. A simple parent and offspring model is extended to include longitudinal and multivariate analyses. Longitudinal quantitative genetic research is essential to the understanding of developmental change and continuity. The largest and longest longitudinal adoption study is the Colorado Adoption Project, which has generated much of the rich data on the progress from infancy to early childhood on which the authors draw throughout the book. Their conclusions about what we know, and what we need to learn, about the origins of individual differences will interest a wide range of readers.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Individual differences and group differences

Quantitative genetics as the basis for a general theory of individual differences

The Colorado Adoption Project

Transitions and changes: description and prediction

Transitions and changes: genetic and environmental etiologies

Introduction to model fitting

Fitting sibling and parent-offspring models in the Colorado Adoption Project

Interactions

Genotype-environment correlation

Genetics and measures of the family environment: the nature of nurture

Conclusions

References

Indexes

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