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The Heritability of Psychopathology Symptoms in Early Adolescence: Moderation by Family Cultural Values in the ABCD Study

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Abstract

Family cultural values that emphasize support, loyalty, and obligation to the family are associated with lower psychopathology in Hispanic/Latino/a youth, but there is a need to understand the implications of family cultural values for youth development in racially/ethnically heterogeneous samples. This study examined phenotypic associations between parent- and youth-reported family cultural values in late childhood on youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms in early adolescence, and whether family cultural values moderated genetic and environmental influences on psychopathology symptoms. The sample comprised 10,335 children (Mage=12.89 years; 47.9% female; 20.3% Hispanic/Latino/a, 15.0% Black, 2.1% Asian, 10.5% other) and their parents from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, and biometric models were conducted in the twin subsample (n = 1,042 twin pairs; 43.3% monozygotic). Parents and youth reported on their family cultural values using the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale at youth age 11–12, and parents reported on youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms using the Child Behavior Checklist at youth ages 11–12 and 12–13. Greater parent- and youth-reported family cultural values predicted fewer youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Biometric models indicated that higher parent-reported family cultural values increased the nonshared environmental influences on externalizing symptoms whereas youth-reported family cultural values decreased the nonshared environmental influences on internalizing symptoms. This study highlights the need for behavior genetic research to consider a diverse range of cultural contexts to better understand the etiology of youth psychopathology.

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Notes

  1. In the present study, parents refer to parents/caregivers. Parents/caregivers were 85.3% biological mothers, 10.0% biological fathers, 2.3% adoptive parents, 1.0% custodial parents, and 1.4% “Other.”

  2. In the present paper, we use the term familism when describing previous work with Hispanic/Latino/a individuals and family cultural values when describing this construct as assessed in racially/ethnically diverse samples, including the ABCD sample considered in the present study.

  3. Generally, parents completed the MACVS during the lab visit, in which case their responses were copied over for each of their participating children. However, there were instances (n = 472 families) where parents completed their surveys prior to, rather than during, the lab visit, resulting in completing the MACVS more than once for each participating twin/sibling. For these cases, scores were averaged across siblings to form a single parent-report score for each family.

  4. The study preregistration proposed including White, Hispanic/Latinx, Black, and Asian participants and excluding American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, multiracial/ethnic, and “Other” in phenotypic analyses due to small cell sizes and because collapsing across racial/ethnic groups assumes homogeneity. However, to be consistent across phenotypic and genetic analyses, we opted to include all possible participants in analyses to maximize sample size.

  5. The study’s original preregistration proposed considering pubertal timing as a moderator in phenotypic analyses. However, per reviewer feedback, the study only considered pubertal timing as a covariate in supplemental analyses.

  6. The denominator represented interactions between parent- and youth-reported family cultural values with (1) Hispanic/Latino/a, (2) Black, (3) Asian, (4) Other, and (5) SES, resulting in 5 interaction analyses for parent- and 5 interaction analyses for youth-reported family cultural values, totaling 10 comparisons.

  7. The study’s original preregistration proposed using the extended univariate GxE model (van der Sluis et al., 2012). However, preliminary analyses indicated that the extended GxE model was not appropriate for the data, as it requires at least moderate associations between the moderator and the trait. Thus, instead of the preregistered van der Sluis et al. (2012) model, we used the Purcell (2002) univariate GxE model.

  8. The original preregistration proposed using raw, untransformed CBCL scores, however, we opted to Winsorize scores that were +/-3 SDs from the mean to 3 SD from the mean, as internalizing and externalizing symptoms were highly skewed and kurtotic.

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Acknowledgements

Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM (ABCD) Study (https://abcdstudy.org), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children aged 9–10 years and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study® is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041048, U01DA050989, U01DA051016, U01DA041022, U01DA051018, U01DA051037, U01DA050987, U01DA041174, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041028, U01DA041134, U01DA050988, U01DA051039, U01DA041156, U01DA041025, U01DA041120, U01DA051038, U01DA041148, U01DA041093, U01DA041089, U24DA041123, U24DA041147. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html. A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/consortium_members/. ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators. Authors also received funding support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (T32DA050560 and R01DA056499).

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Gianna Rea-Sandin (GRS), Juan Del Toro (JDT), Sylia Wilson (SW). Conceptualization: GRS, JDT, SW. Methodology: GRS. Formal analysis and investigation: GRS. Writing—original draft preparation: GRS. Writing—review and editing: JDT, SW, GRS. Funding acquisition: SW. Supplementary Information: GRS, SW. Supervision: SW.

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Correspondence to Gianna Rea-Sandin.

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Rea-Sandin, G., Del Toro, J. & Wilson, S. The Heritability of Psychopathology Symptoms in Early Adolescence: Moderation by Family Cultural Values in the ABCD Study. Behav Genet 54, 119–136 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-023-10154-x

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