Child Exposure to Serious Life Events, COMT, and Aggression: Testing Differential Susceptibility Theory

Autor/inn/en	Hygen, Beate Wold; Belsky, Jay; Stenseng, Frode; Lydersen, Stian; Guzey, Ismail Cuneyt; Wichstrøm, Lars
Titel	Child Exposure to Serious Life Events, COMT, and Aggression: Testing Differential Susceptibility Theory
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 51 (2015) 8, S.1098-1104 (7 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/dev0000020
Schlagwörter	Aggression; Genetics; Environmental Influences; Interaction; Child Behavior; Teacher Attitudes; Regression (Statistics); Correlation; Trauma; Child Development; Foreign Countries; Scores; Parents; Predictor Variables; Statistical Analysis; Norway; Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Humangenetik; Environmental influence; Umwelteinfluss; Interaktion; Lehrerverhalten; Regression; Regressionsanalyse; Korrelation; Kindesentwicklung; Ausland; Eltern; Prädiktor; Statistische Analyse; Norwegen
Abstract	Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to individual differences in aggression. Catechol-O-methyltransferase Val158Met (COMT), a common, functional polymorphism, has been implicated in aggression and aggression traits, as have childhood experiences of adversity. It is unknown whether these effects are additive or interactional and, in the case of interaction, whether they conform to a diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility model. We examined Gene × Environment interactions between COMT and serious life events on measures of childhood aggression and contrasted these 2 models. The sample was composed of community children (N = 704); 355 were boys, and the mean age was 54.8 months (SD = 3.0). The children were genotyped for COMT rs4680 and assessed for serious life events and by teacher-rated aggression. Regression analysis showed no main effects of COMT and serious life events on aggression. However, a significant interactive effect of childhood serious life events and COMT genotype was observed: Children who had faced many serious life events and were Val homozygotes exhibited more aggression (p = 0.02) than did their Met-carrying counterparts. Notably, in the absence of serious life events, Val homozygotes displayed significantly lower aggression scores than did Met carriers (p = 0.03). When tested, this constellation of findings conformed to the differential susceptibility hypothesis: In this case, Val homozygotes are more malleable to the effect of serious life events on aggression and not simply more vulnerable to the negative effect of having experienced many serious life events. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01