Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

2008, Vol. 94, No. 5, 899 912

Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association

0022-3514/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.5.899

Adolescent Personality Moderates Genetic and Environmental Influences

on Relationships With Parents
Susan C. South and Robert F. Krueger

Wendy Johnson

University of MinnesotaTwin Cities

University of MinnesotaTwin Cities and University of

Edinburgh

William G. Iacono
University of MinnesotaTwin Cities
In contrast with early theories of socialization that emphasized the role of parents in shaping their
childrens personalities, recent empirical evidence suggests an evocative relationship between adolescent
personality traits and the quality of the parentadolescent relationship. Research using behavior genetic
methods suggests that the association between personality and parenting is genetically mediated, such
that the genetic effects on adolescent personality traits overlap with the genetic effects on parenting
behavior. In the current study, the authors examined whether the etiology of this relationship might
change depending on the adolescents personality. Biometrical moderation models were used to test for
gene environment interaction and correlation between personality traits and measures of conflict, regard,
and involvement with parents in a sample of 2,452 adolescents (M age 17.79 years). They found
significant moderation of both positive and negative qualities of the parentadolescent relationship, such
that the genetic and environmental variance in relationship quality varied as functions of the adolescents
levels of personality. These findings support the importance of adolescent personality in the development
of the quality of the parentadolescent relationship.
Keywords: personality, parenting, behavior genetics, moderation

examined whether the etiology of the parentadolescent relationship changes depending on the adolescents personality by determining the moderating impact of adolescent personality on the
genetic and environmental influences on the parentadolescent
relationship.

For many years, it was assumed that family environment, including parenting quality, played a causal role in personality
development. This theory of socialization maintained that parents
played the major, if not defining, role in child development (Bell,
1968). Subsequent to this, the dynamic interactionistic paradigm
recognized that children were not simply the products of parental
behavior (Caspi & Shiner, 2006; Magnusson, 1990; Patterson,
1982; Sameroff, 1983) but that individual differences in childhood
personality also lead to variations in the quality of the parent child
relationship. Some took this position to its extreme, suggesting that
parents have little if any impact on adolescent development (Harris, 1995, 1998). A reasonable synthetic perspective is that child
personality and parental behavior are related through bidirectional interactive processes (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Heatherington, & Bornstein, 2000, p. 222). In the current study, we

The Role of Adolescent Personality in the Parent

Adolescent Relationship
Evidence from the literature on personality development supports the notion of temperament (Rothbart & Bates, 2006), consisting of core traits (Asendorpf & Van Aken, 2003) or basic
dispositions (McCrae & Costa, 1999) that are present from birth
and have links to adult personality (Caspi et al., 2003). This is not
to say, however, that personality is set from birth. There are several
mechanisms by which individual characteristics transact with the
environment, including interpersonal relationships (Shiner &
Caspi, 2003). One of the most important relationships for personality development is the parent relationship. Here, evidence supports a bidirectional influence between the temperament or personality and the parent child relationship. Negative,
inappropriate, or unskilled parenting behaviors appear to play a
particularly important role in the development of externalizing
behaviors, whereas warm and supportive parenting behaviors seem
to act as protective factors (Bates, Petit, Dodge, & Ridge, 1998;
Belsky, Hsieh, & Crnic, 1998; Rubin, Burgess, Dwyer, & Hastings, 2003; Stoolmiller, 2001). Conversely, children with temperaments high in negative emotionality elicit less supportive parenting behaviors, particularly in households of low socioeconomic

Susan C. South, Robert F. Krueger, and William G. Iacono, Department

of Psychology, University of MinnesotaTwin Cities; Wendy Johnson,
Department of Psychology, University of MinnesotaTwin Cities and
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
This work was supported in part by United States Public Health Service
Grants AA09367 to Matthew McGue and DA05147 to William G. Iacono.
Wendy Johnson holds an RCUK Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to either
Susan C. South or Robert F. Krueger, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, N218 Elliott Hall, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis,
MN 55455. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]
899

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SOUTH, KRUEGER, JOHNSON, AND IACONO

status (Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns, & Peetsma,

2007).
Shiner and Caspi (2003) delineated six environmental processes
that work to shape the development of personality through adolescence into adulthood: learning processes, environmental elicitation, environmental construal, social and temporal comparisons,
environmental selection, and environmental manipulation. Theoretically, all of these processes could play a part in the emerging
relationship between adolescent personality traits and relationships
with parents. There is little empirical evidence for the operation of
some (e.g., social comparisons, environmental selection and manipulation) but greater support for the ways in which personality
traits may shape the elicitation and construal of behavior from
others (Shiner & Caspi, 2003). Particularly as children mature into
adolescence, individual differences in personality evoke different
responses from parents and selection of different types and frequencies of interactions with parents. It is most likely this process
of person environment transaction that contributes to the increasing stability and consistency of personality during adolescence
(Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000).
Although there are a greater number of studies connecting
personality to other forms of interpersonal relationships (e.g., peers
and romantic partners), accumulating empirical evidence supports
an evocative relationship between adolescent personality and parent behaviors. Branje, van Lieshout, and van Aken (2004) found a
positive, cross-sectional link between adolescents agreeableness
and perceived support from parents. Levels of conscientiousness
and openness in the older of two siblings were related to perceived
support from both parents, whereas extraversion and neuroticism
in the younger siblings were related to perceived support from the
father only. In a later study, Branje, van Lieshout, and van Aken
(2005) examined the relationship between agreeableness and perceived support across all possible combinations of family relationships for parents and adolescents. They found no general link
across family members between self-reported agreeableness and
perceived support; however, they did find significant
agreeablenesssupport correlations within most of the possible
family dyads (i.e., motherfather, father oldest child) except for
the motheryounger adolescent relationship. Consistent findings
for a link between personality and perceived parental support in
older siblings suggest that this association becomes stronger over
the course of adolescence.
Longitudinal studies provide a better method than crosssectional studies for teasing apart causal influences in the
personalityparenting association. Asendorpf and Wilpers (1998)
examined the longitudinal connections between personality traits
and interpersonal relationships in a German college-student sample. Overall, they found strong stability of personality over a
period of 18 months, compared with much greater instability of
social relationships. Personality traits influenced social relationships, but not vice versa; specific to family, conscientiousness was
related to frequency of contact with parents. Further, change in
relationship status was unrelated to changes in personality. The
authors concluded that by early adulthood, the quality of relationships with peers, family, and romantic partners is a function of
personality. To examine whether personality in adolescence might
be more malleable to influences from relationships, Asendorpf and
van Aken (2003) studied the association between personality and
parenting behavior between the ages of 12 and 17 years. Adoles-

cents who were higher in levels of conscientiousness reported

increasing levels of support from their fathers over this age range.
There were no significant relationships between perceived support
from parents at age 12 and personality traits at age 17. The authors
concluded that core traits, like conscientiousness, are relatively
stable and enduring traits from birth to adulthood, whereas surface
traits are more prone to influence from the environment. Their
findings also supported cross-sectional research that hinted at the
greater influence of personality on parent relationship as the age of
the adolescent increases.

Sources of Influences on the PersonalityParenting

Relationship: Findings From Behavior Genetics
Using behavior genetic methods, researchers have attempted to
explicate the nature of the relationship between personality and
parental relationship quality. For instance, some have hypothesized that the association between personality and family environment is genetically mediated. At this point, it is well known that
measures of the family environment, including parenting, are
modestly heritable (Bouchard & McGue, 1990; Elkins, McGue, &
Iacono, 1997; Hur & Bouchard, 1995; McGue, Elkins, Walden, &
Iacono, 2005; Plomin & Bergeman, 1991; Plomin, McClearn,
Pedersen, Nesselroade, & Bergeman, 1988; Reiss, Neiderhiser,
Heatherington, & Plomin, 2000; Rowe, 1981, 1983). It was proposed that these measures are heritable because they are influenced
by personality traits, which are, on average, 50% heritable (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001). That is, a persons individual characteristics affect how they interact with others (or, alternately, how they
think others interact with them), so the genetic influences on
environmental measures actually reflect the personality traits of
the person.
The two mechanisms through which genetically influenced
characteristics could affect measures of the environment have been
labeled evocative and active gene environment correlations (Scarr
& McCartney, 1983). Evocative correlation occurs when differences in peoples genetically influenced characteristics evoke specific responses from the people around them. Adolescents who are
highly emotionally labile, for example, likely elicit very different
reactions from their parents than do adolescents with calm, eventempered dispositions. Active correlation occurs when genetic
influences on personality affect the process by which individuals
select their environments (e.g., amount of time spent with parents)
or the process by which they make attributions regarding aspects
of their relationships with others. Adolescents prone to excitement
and sensation seeking may be more likely to choose to spend time
with like-minded peers rather than with parents who try to reinforce more constrained behavior.
Multivariate genetic models with structural equation modeling
detect gene environment correlation by estimating the degree to
which genetic influences on one variable are related to the genetic
influences on a second variable. As the degree of genetic overlap
between personality and parenting increases, it becomes more
probable that genetic influences on personality are responsible for
genetic influences on parenting. To date, research has found genetic relationships between personality traits and life events (Billig, Hershberger, Iacono, & McGue, 1996; Saudino, Pedersen,
Lichtenstein, McClearn, & Plomin, 1997) and risk of divorce
(Jocklin, McGue, & Lykken, 1996). Chipuer, Plomin, Pedersen,

ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY MODERATES RELATIONSHIPS

McClearn, and Nesselroade (1993) collected measures of current

family environment, neuroticism, and extraversion in a sample of
older adult twins. They found that the association between the
personality traits and the relationship scale from the Moos Family
Environment Scale was primarily genetically mediated; however,
a significant portion of the genetic variation in family environment
was unaccounted for by personality. Krueger, Markon, and Bouchard (2003) investigated whether the genetic influences on childrearing environment, including parenting, could account for genetic influences on adult personality. Using data from the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, Krueger et al. found that the
connections between the personality traits of negative emotionality
and constraint and the amount of cohesion in the recalled family
environment were genetically mediated. They concluded that the
same genotype that led to adult personality traits also influenced
recall of childhood rearing environment. Taken together, the results from these myriad studies would suggest that a persons
genetically influenced personality traits often influence the nature
of their relationships within the family.

Current Study
The limitation in the behavior genetic work on personality and
parenting relationship is that these bivariate quantitative genetic
models average over any group differences within the population.
This is similar to any main-effects model in statistics; for instance,
a regression equation predicting adolescent smoking behavior
from access to cigarettes averages across the sample. However,
much like an examination of moderation in that example may
reveal a smaller effect when there is greater parental monitoring, it
is also possible that the estimation of genetic and environmental
influences on one phenotype may vary as a function of differences
in another. This is a form of Gene Environment interaction, the
genetic susceptibility to environmental risk, or, alternatively, differential genetic expression in different environments. When
Gene Environment interaction occurs, the genetic influences on
a phenotype are more or less important depending on the level of
a second trait. Examples of this work and their findings include
less genetic influence on depression in unmarried women (Heath,
Eaves, & Martin, 1998), smaller genetic influence on disinhibition
in more religious families (Boomsma, de Geus, van Baal, &
Koopmans, 1999), and greater genetic influence on IQ in families
of high socioeconomic status (Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron,
DOnofrio, & Gottesman, 2003).
Using models that allow for and quantify moderation of this
kind to address the current research topic may increase our understanding of how the parentadolescent relationship develops in the
context of the adolescents emerging personality. Research suggests that there is a bidirectional relationship between the development of personality and the emerging parent child relationship.
In prior work using the same sample of adolescent twins, we found
that perceptions of the parenting relationship moderated the genetic and environmental influences on adolescent personality traits
(Krueger, South, Johnson, & Iacono, in press). We built on that
study by examining the other direction of influence how qualities of the parentadolescent relationship, as reported by both the
parent and adolescent, result from the adolescents personality
traits. Using new modeling for biometrical moderation, we examined whether the individual characteristics of the adolescent (i.e.,

901

personality traits) can change or influence the etiology of the

personalityparenting relationship.

Method
Participants
The current study used participants from the Minnesota Twin
Family Study (MTFS), an ongoing population-based, longitudinal
study of adolescent twins and their families. Birth records and
public databases were used to locate more than 90% of twin births
in the state of Minnesota from 1971 through 1985. Families were
excluded from the study if either twin had a cognitive or physical
handicap that would preclude them from completing our daylong,
in-person assessment, or if the family lived more than 1 days drive
from our Minneapolis laboratory. Of the eligible families, 83%
agreed to participate. Although there were no significant differences between participating and nonparticipating families in regard to socioeconomic status and self-reported mental health problems, parents in participating families had slightly, albeit
significantly, more education (0.25 years) than did parents in
nonparticipating families (Iacono, Carlson, Taylor, Elkins, &
McGue, 1999). Reflecting the population of Minnesota at the time
of the twins birth, approximately 98% of the sample was Caucasian. Children gave informed assent, and parents gave informed
consent for themselves and their children. The research protocol
was approved by the University of Minnesota Institutional Review
Board. Further information regarding all aspects of MTFS recruitment is detailed elsewhere (Iacono et al., 1999).
The MTFS uses two cohorts of twins in an accelerated longitudinal design. Participants enter the study at age 11 or 17 years
(corresponding to younger and older cohorts, respectively) and
return for follow-up assessments approximately every 3 years
thereafter. The original 11-year-old cohort consisted of 756 samesex, reared-together monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin
pairs: 376 male pairs (254 MZ; 122 DZ) and 380 female pairs (233
MZ; 147 DZ). The 17-year-old cohort consisted of 626 same-sex
twin pairs: 289 male pairs (188 MZ; 101 DZ) and 337 female pairs
(223 MZ; 114 DZ). For the purposes of the current study, we used
data from both cohorts at the overlapping assessment point of age
17 years: the older cohort at intake and the younger cohort at their
second follow-up visit. This included all 1,252 individuals from
the older cohort at the intake assessment and 1,320 twins from the
younger cohort who completed the second follow-up assessment
(87% of the younger cohort).
Participants were excluded from this total sample of 2,572 if
they were missing data on all of the personality variables and all of
the parenting variables (n 67) and if cotwin data were entirely
missing (n 53). This brought the final sample size to 2,452,
including 585 male twin pairs (386 MZ; 199 DZ) and 641 female
twin pairs (412 MZ; 229 DZ). The greater percentage of MZ twins
relative to DZ twins in this sample is due to an overrepresentation
of MZ twins in the population from which the sample was drawn,
as well as a somewhat higher participation rate of families with
MZ twins (Hur, McGue, & Iacono, 1995). At the time participants
completed the measures used in the current study, they ranged in
age from 16.55 to 20.12 years, with a mean of 17.79 (SD 0.65).

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SOUTH, KRUEGER, JOHNSON, AND IACONO

Zygosity
In the MTFS, three estimates are used to determine twin zygosity. MTFS staff evaluates the twins physical similarity, including
visage, hair color, and face and ear shape. Next, parents complete
a standard zygosity questionnaire. Finally, ponderal and cephalic
indices and fingerprint ridge count are measured. A previous
validation study (N 50) demonstrated 100% accuracy of zygosity determination when these three estimates agree. When these
three estimates do not agree, a blood sample is requested, and a
serological analysis is performed.

Assessment of Personality
Personality was measured with the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen & Waller, in press), a 198-item
self-report personality measure designed to assess a broad range of
personality characteristics across normal populations. All participants were mailed the MPQ prior to the assessment and asked to
bring the completed inventory with them to their in-person visit. If
the MPQ was not completed upon a participants arrival for his or
her laboratory assessment or by the end of the day-long visit, the
participant was asked to take it home and return the completed
measure to the study by mail. Internal consistency reliabilities for
the MPQ range from .76 to .89 and 30-day testretest reliabilities
range from .82 to .92. The MPQ assesses 11 primary personality
domains, 10 of which load on three higher order factors (the 11th
scale, Absorption, does not load on any factor). The three higher
order factors are Positive Emotionality (PEM; a broad measure of
positive well-being and tendency to view life as a pleasurable
experience), Negative Emotionality (NEM; a propensity to experience psychological distress), and Constraint (CN; a tendency to
endorse traditional values and act in a cautious manner). PEM
subsumes the lower order scales of Well-Being, Achievement,
Social Potency, and Social Closeness. NEM is composed of Aggression, Alienation, and Stress Reaction. Finally, CN is a composite of Traditionalism, Control, and Harm Avoidance. Only the
higher order scales were included in the present analyses. MPQ
data were available for 2,169 individuals (nmen 1,053, nwomen
1,116) from the total sample of 2,452.

ParentAdolescent Relationship Quality

The Parental Environment Questionnaire (PEQ) was administered to both the adolescent twins and their mothers to tap perceptions of parent child relationships. The PEQ was mailed to all
participants prior to the assessment. If the PEQ was not completed
upon their arrival for their laboratory assessment or by the end of
the day-long visit, participants were asked to complete it at home
and return it by mail. The PEQ asks mothers and twins to complete
50 items assessing aspects of their relationship on a 4-point scale
(1 definitely true, 2 probably true, 3 probably false, and
4 definitely false). Twins rated their relationships with their
mothers and fathers, whereas mothers rated their own relationship
with each individual twin. Items in the versions of the PEQ
completed by mothers and twins were essentially the same, with
minor changes in wording appropriate for the particular rater.
The PEQ was developed by the MTFS because the standard
measures of family environment available when the study began

failed to assess dyadic relationships within the family, instead

focusing on the overall family climate. The PEQ scales were
organized around the two broad domains of conflict (vs. nurturance/warmth) and control and correlate significantly in the expected direction with an alternative measure of the family environment (Elkins et al., 1997). Further details regarding the
development, theoretical rationale, and psychometric properties of
the PEQ are given in Elkins et al. (1997). Five factor-analytically
derived scores are produced by responses to the PEQ: Conflict,
Parent Involvement, Regard for Parent, Regard for Child, and
Structure. The Structure scale is the only scale to assess the control
aspect; in addition, it has low internal reliability (Elkins et al.,
1997), thus, we did not consider it in this study. For the present
investigation, we used scores for the Conflict scale (12 items, e.g.,
my parent often loses her/his temper with me; .82), Involvement scale (12 items, e.g., I talk about my concerns and my
experiences with my parent; .74), Regard for Parent scale
(eight items, e.g., I want to be like my parent in a number of
ways; .75), and the Parent Regard for Twin scale (five items,
e.g., my parent is proud of me; .69; McGue et al., 2005).
Scores were prorated for scales missing ratings for 10% or fewer
of their items (i.e., the average of the other items was used as the
missing items score); if more than 10% of the scales constituent
items were missing, the scale was considered missing.
To create composite indices of Regard, Conflict, and Involvement, we averaged ratings from mothers and twins (Burt, Krueger,
McGue, & Iacono, 2003; Burt, McGue, Iacono, & Krueger, 2006;
Burt, McGue, Krueger, & Iacono, 2005). Because twin ratings
about the mother and father were highly correlated (.80; McGue
et al., 2005), we first averaged these ratings. Significant correlations were also found for (a) twin reports of Regard for Parent and
Parent Regard for Twin (r .65, p .0001) and (b) mother
reports of Regard for Parent and Parent Regard for Twin (r .41,
p .0001), so we combined scores for these two scales to form
summary scores for Regard. Separate composite indices were then
created for Regard, Conflict, and Involvement. We averaged the
twin composite and the mother report of twin to more fully capture
the relational aspect of the parentadolescent relationship (the
correlations between mother report of twin and twin report of
mother were .41 for Conflict, .29 for Regard, and .36 for Involvement). This is supported by previous work in the MTFS samples
that has found that each informant uniquely contributes to the
prediction of external validity criteria, including behavior problems and grades (Burt et al., 2005). PEQ data were available for
2,364 participants for Regard (nmen 1,119, nwomen 1,245),
2,365 individuals for Conflict (nmen 1,120, nwomen 1,245),
and 2,364 individuals for Involvement (nmen 1,119, nwomen
1,245).

Biometric Analyses
We used biometric modeling to evaluate the genetic and environmental moderation of parentadolescent relationship quality by
adolescent personality. This type of modeling makes use of twin
methodology and structural equation modeling to estimate how
much of the variance in a trait (phenotype) is due to additive
genetic effects, or the effect of individual genes summed over loci
(A); shared environmental effects, or the extent to which growing
up in the same family makes people similar (C); and nonshared

ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY MODERATES RELATIONSHIPS

environmental effects, or the extent to which people are unique,

despite growing up in the same family (E). The standard univariate
ACE model assumes that the A, C, and E components are fixed
over the entire population from which the sample is drawn. In
other words, there is no provision for the association between the
genetic and environmental influences on personality and any other
trait.
To test our assertion that the genetic and environmental influences on the parentadolescent relationship differ as a function of
adolescent personality, we needed to use a model that allowed the
variance components of parent relationship quality to vary as a
function of adolescent personality. This type of analysis has been
referred to as a test of gene environment interaction, or the notion
that different environments can lead to different genetic expression
of a phenotype. However, this term does not completely describe
the nature of the effects we examined. In the current study, neither
the moderator variable, personality, nor the dependent variable,
parenting behavior, are wholly environmental or wholly genetic.
The advantage of the model that we used is that it is possible to
decompose the moderator variable into its genetic and environmental variance components and test for gene environment interaction in the presence of gene environment correlation (Purcell,
2002). A genetic correlation is the amount of overlap in the genetic
influences on two phenotypes and ranges from 1 to 1; similar
types of correlations (i.e., overlap) can occur for shared and
nonshared environmental influences. Therefore, we use the more
accurate term biometrical moderation to refer to the analyses
conducted in these studies; this term better captures the goal of this
studyto determine whether the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on parenting depends on the adolescents
level of personality (gene environment interaction) and the extent
to which influences acting on parenting also exert influences on
personality (gene environment correlation).
We fit biometric models to the raw data using the Mx software
system (Neale, Boker, Xie, & Maes, 2003). To ease interpretation,
we recoded the parenting variables as necessary so that they would
be positively correlated with the personality variables (which
remained scored in the same direction for all models, with higher
scores corresponding to greater PEM, NEM or CN). To correct for
potential biases in model fitting, we adjusted the personality and
parenting relationship scales for effects of age and gender (McGue
& Bouchard, 1984). Each scale was regressed on age, age2, Age
Gender, and Age2 Gender, and the standardized residuals from

903

these regressions were used in subsequent analyses. Because not

all participants had both MPQ and PEQ data for all scales, we used
full-information maximum likelihood with the raw data, a procedure that was also necessary for the moderated biometric models
we were using. This procedure relies on the assumption that data
are missing at random (Little & Rubin, 2002), an assumption that
we considered reasonable in this case, as questionnaire return
status was not linked in any way to any study measure status. Fits
of the moderation models were judged relative to the fit of a
bivariate decomposition model in which the six moderation parameters (XcM and XuM for A, C, and E) were fixed at zero, so
that aC XcM became aC (0 M) aC.
We used two indices to evaluate model fit: (a) the likelihoodratio test (LRT; distributed as chi squared and computed as the
difference in the 2 log-likelihood values for the two models) and
(b) the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC; Akaike, 1987). The
LRT is used as a goodness-of-fit index, representing the degree of
fit between model expectations and observed data. Statistically
significant values are associated with a relatively poor fit. Improvements in the models fit, from adding or omitting parameters,
can be assessed by a statistically significant change in LRT. AIC
is also conventionally used to compare the fit of alternative models. The AIC considers goodness of fit in the likelihood sense (how
well the model reproduces the observed data) but prefers models
that capture the data both accurately and parsimoniously over more
complex models. Because the aim of model fitting is to explain the
data as parsimoniously as possible, the model with the lowest AIC
value is generally considered best.

Results
Descriptive Statistics
We calculated the phenotypic correlations between personality
and parenting variables using Mplus (Muthen & Muthen, 1998
2006), which uses a maximum likelihood robust estimator to
produce confidence intervals that are adjusted for the nonindependence of the twin data. The relationships among the transformed
variables were in the expected directions (see Table 1). Regard was
positively correlated with PEM (r .25; 95% confidence interval
[CI] 0.20, 0.31; p .0001), negatively correlated with NEM
(r .25; 95% CI 0.29, 0.21; p .0001), and positively
correlated with CN (r .24; 95% CI 0.19, 0.29; p .0001).

Table 1
Phenotypic and Twin Correlations for Parenting and Personality Measures
Twin
correlations
Relationship quality variable
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Regard
Conflict
Involvement
Positive Emotionality
Negative Emotionality
Constraint

Note.

.63
.77
.25
.25
.24

.62
.11
.35
.26

MZ monozygotic; DZ dizygotic.

.29
.25
.26

.10
.17

.08

MZ

DZ

.70
.72
.71
.52
.49
.54

.52
.46
.53
.22
.17
.21

SOUTH, KRUEGER, JOHNSON, AND IACONO

904

Cc
Ac

Cu

aM

Au

Ec

cM

aU+XuM

eM
cC+XcM

Eu
cu+XuM

eu+XuM

eC+XcM

aC+XcM

PERSONALITY

PARENTING

Figure 1. Path diagram of a biometrical moderation model with adolescent personality (PERSONALITY)
moderating the genetic and environmental influences on parentadolescent relationship (PARENTING). The
model is a variation of the bivariate (Cholesky) decomposition model, in which the variances and covariances
of the observed variables are decomposed into the proportion of variance associated with genetic (a), shared
environmental (c), and nonshared environmental (e) components that are shared between the two phenotypes and
unique to the second phenotype. There are two sets of paths contributing genetic and environmental influences:
those common to parentadolescent relationship and the moderator (personality), and those unique to parent
relationship. The paths from the moderator (M) variable to the dependent variable are now linear functions of
the form a M, where a is the parameter for genetic influence on the variable, is a regression coefficient,
and M is the level of the moderator variable. A genetic variance, C shared environmental variance, E
nonshared environmental variance.

Conflict was negative correlated with PEM (r .11; 95% CI

0.16, 0.06; p .0001), positively correlated with NEM (r
.35; 95% CI 0.30, 0.39; p .0001), and negatively correlated
with CN (r .26; 95% CI 0.31, 0.21; p .0001).
Involvement was positively correlated with PEM (r .29; 95%
CI 0.24, 0.34; p .0001), negatively correlated with NEM (r
.25; 95% CI 0.30, 0.21; p .0001), and positively
correlated with CN (r .26; 95% CI 0.21, 0.31; p .0001).
Also shown in Table 1 are basic MZ and DZ twin correlations
for the personality and parenting measures. We computed twin
correlations using an intraclass correlation coefficient in SPSS.
These MZ and DZ intraclass correlations can be compared to
obtain a general indication of the extent to which genetic and
environmental influences operate on the phenotype. In all cases,
the MZ correlations exceeded the DZ correlations, suggesting that
both personality and parenting measures are likely to be influenced
by genetic effects. However, MZ correlations for the parenting
measures were less than double the DZ correlations, implicating
the importance of shared environmental effects.1

Biometric Moderation Analysis

We tested whether adolescent personality traits moderated the
genetic and environmental influences on the quality of the parent
adolescent relationship by fitting our variables to the biometrical

moderation model in Figure 1. There were nine combinations of

parenting and personality variables: Regard moderated by PEM,
NEM, and CN; Conflict moderated by PEM, NEM and CN; and
Involvement moderated by PEM, NEM, and CN. For each of these
nine combinations, we compared the fit of a model with all
moderation parameters fixed to zero (no moderation) to a model
with all moderation parameters estimated (A, C, and E full moderation). As shown in Table 2, full ACE biometrical moderation
was significant for seven of the nine possible combinations of
parenting and personality variables. These results were supported
by both LRT and AIC. The strongest effects were for the moderating effects of PEM, 2(6) 54.89, p .0001; NEM, 2(6)
1

An anonymous reviewer suggested that we augment our results by

providing MZ and DZ twin correlations for low versus high levels of
personality. If the moderator variable were the same for both twins (e.g.,
parental marital status or socioeconomic status), then it would be quite easy
to calculate twin correlations at different levels of the moderator. However,
in this study, the twin pairs are often discordant for level of personality
traits (i.e., Twin 1s level of PEM differs from Twin 2s level of PEM). So
to calculate a twin correlation at low versus high levels of personality is not
possible. Indeed, the fact that the biometric moderation models use all
individual data, and not covariances between twins, is a strength of the
study and why these models are able to calculate ACE variance estimates
at different levels of the moderator (Purcell, 2002).

4038
4036
4036
4036
4034
4034
4034
4032
4039
4037
4037
4037
4035
4035
4035
4033
4039

4033

10597.12
10596.10
10588.46
10595.86
10587.26
10584.03
10583.78
10581.12

10497.52

10486.68

df

10566.98
10547.67
10537.09
10519.83
10535.49
10517.11
10514.19
10512.09

2lnL

10.84

1.02
8.67
1.26
9.86
13.09
13.35
16.00

19.31
29.89
47.15
31.49
49.87
52.79
54.89

2
2
2
4
4
4
6

2
2
2
4
4
4
6

df

0.094

0.600
0.013
0.532
0.043
0.011
0.010
0.014

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000

2420.68

2419.52

2519.12
2522.10
2514.46
2521.86
2517.26
2514.03
2513.78
2515.12

2490.98
2475.67
2465.09
2447.83
2467.49
2449.11
2446.19
2448.09

AIC

10505.15
10471.38
10476.68
10486.91
10470.66
10468.75
10471.07
10467.82

10365.76

10385.29

10558.10
10509.91
10516.23
10529.69
10507.58
10504.38
10502.93
10501.57

2lnL

4039
4037
4037
4037
4035
4035
4035
4033

4033

4039

4038
4036
4036
4036
4034
4034
4034
4032

df

33.77
28.47
18.23
34.49
36.40
34.08
37.33

19.53

48.19
41.87
28.41
50.52
53.71
55.16
56.53

2
2
2
4
4
4
6

2
2
2
4
4
4
6

df
p

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000

0.003

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000

Negative Emotionality

2427.15
2397.38
2402.68
2412.91
2400.66
2398.75
2401.07
2401.82

2299.75

2307.29

2482.10
2437.91
2444.23
2457.69
2439.58
2436.38
2434.93
2437.57

AIC

10502.59

10518.30

10480.89

10491.52

10577.61
10555.89
10553.98
10531.40
10552.29
10524.95
10520.14
10517.74

2lnL

4033

4039

4033

4039

4038
4036
4036
4036
4034
4034
4034
4032

df

15.70

10.63

21.72
23.63
46.21
25.32
52.66
57.47
59.87

2
2
2
4
4
4
6

df

Constraint

0.015

0.101

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000

2436.59

2440.30

2414.89

2413.52

2501.61
2483.89
2481.98
2459.40
2484.29
2456.95
2452.14
2453.74

AIC

Note. 2lnL 2 log likelihood; AIC Akaikes Information Criterion; A genetic variance; C shared environmental variance; E nonshared environmental variance. Selected moderation
models are shown in bold. Empty cells indicate that no tests of specific moderation parameters were conducted because the full moderation model was not a better fit to the data than the no-moderation
model, according to either raw or transformed data.

Regard
No moderation
Only A moderation
Only C moderation
Only E moderation
A and C moderation (no E)
A and E moderation (no C)
C and E moderation (no A)
A, C, and E full moderation
Conflict
No moderation
Only A moderation
Only C moderation
Only E moderation
A and C moderation (no E)
A and E moderation (no C)
C and E moderation (no A)
A, C, and E full moderation
Involvement
No moderation
Only A moderation
Only C moderation
Only E moderation
A and C moderation (no E)
A and E moderation (no C)
C and E moderation (no A)
A, C, and E full moderation

Relationship quality variable

Positive Emotionality

Moderating Variable

Table 2
Fit Statistics From the Models of Variance Components Allowing for Gene-Environment Interaction and Correlation

ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY MODERATES RELATIONSHIPS

905

906

SOUTH, KRUEGER, JOHNSON, AND IACONO

56.53, p .0001; and CN, 2(6) 59.87, p .0001, on Regard.

The moderating effects of PEM on Involvement and CN on Conflict could be removed without a significant decrease in fit, suggesting that the genetic and environmental effects on Involvement
and Conflict were the same across all levels of PEM and CN,
respectively.
Confirmation of findings with transformed data. We used two
approaches to confirm that these results were not simply the result
of nonnormality in the data. First, we again compared the nomoderation and ACE full moderation models, this time using
transformed scores for Conflict (skew 0.436), Regard (skew
1.117), and Involvement (skew 0.571). To use the same
type of transformation on all variables, we first reverse scored
Conflict and subjected all variables to a square transformation.
Results reported above for the raw data (age and gender regressed)
were generally replicated using transformed scores for Regard,
Conflict, and Involvement; however, the effects of NEM on Conflict, 2(6) 7.77, p ns, and CN on Involvement, 2(6) 8.88,
p ns, were no longer significant.
In a second, separate attempt to confirm that our findings were
not the result of extreme data points, we truncated the raw data for
the three personality variablesPEM, NEM, and CN. After age
and gender were regressed out of the personality variables, we
trimmed the z score residuals such that anyone above 2 or below
2 was recoded to these boundaries. When these truncated personality variables were used, all seven significant effects found
with raw data were replicated.2
Further analysis of moderation models. We now turn to further interpretation of the moderation models but limit our discussion to the five models that were best supported with analyses
using raw and transformed data: Regard moderated by PEM,
NEM, and CN; Conflict moderated by PEM; and Involvement
moderated by NEM. Because the moderation of Conflict by NEM
and Involvement by CN could not be completely confirmed using
transformed data, we remain cautious in our interpretation of these
results and do not discuss these models further.
Having established that the full moderation model with all
moderation parameters freely estimated provided a better fit to the
data than did the no-moderation models for five of the combinations of parenting and personality variables, we then sought to
establish which moderation parameters were driving the effect.
That is, we wished to determine whether all of the three types of
variance (genetic, shared environmental, unique environmental)
were moderated by the personality variables or whether moderation occurred for some of these variance components and not
others. Starting from the no-moderation, baseline model, we added
moderation for each of the A, C, and E paths and their combinations in turn. In sum, a total of six models (in addition to the
no-moderation and full moderation models) were run: (a) only A
moderation (no C and E), (b) only C moderation (no A and E), (c)
only E moderation (no A and C), (d) A and C moderation (no E),
(e) A and E moderation (no C), and (f) C and E moderation (no A).
The results for this full series of models are discussed in turn
below. The results of the full series of models are presented in
Table 2, with the best fitting moderation models highlighted in
bold.
Table 3 presents the estimated variance components (A, C, and
E) for Regard, Conflict, and Involvement from the no-moderation
models and the best fitting moderation models. Estimates from the

no-moderation models are equivalent to estimates from a standard

bivariate decomposition model such that they apply to the population in the aggregate, regardless of level of personality. When
moderation is significant for any of the ACE components, the
variance estimates vary as functions of every level of the moderator variable (here, personality); for ease of presentation, they are
shown in Table 3 at five different levels, scaled in standard
deviation units (z scored): 2, 1, 0, 1, and 2 standard deviations
away from the mean of the moderator.3 Two types of ACE
estimates are given in Table 3, for both the moderation and
no-moderation models: (a) the raw A, C, and E estimates are
shown in the first three columns, followed by the total phenotypic
variance; and (b) A, C, and E estimates expressed as proportions of
the total variance in parenting (e.g., A% A / A C E, also
referred to as h2, the heritability estimate). The final three columns
present the genetic and environmental correlations (rA, rC, and rE).
Moderation of Regard by PEM. The models based on PEM
and Regard are displayed graphically in Figure 2. The first panel
illustrates the unstandardized variance components for Regard
from the no-moderation model decomposition of PEM and Regard.
As shown, the A (genetic) component is .40, whereas the E
(nonshared environmental) and C (shared environmental) components are about .30, corresponding to the variance estimates given
in Table 3. As this model does not take into account moderation of
parenting by personality, the variance components are static across
the range of PEM. As shown in Table 2, the moderation model
clearly fits the data better than the no-moderation model. Further
parsing of the full ACE moderation model revealed that two
submodels of the moderation model, in which there was moderation on E only, 2(2) 47.15, p .0001, AIC 2447.83, and
moderation on C and E only, 2(4) 52.79, p .0001, AIC
2446.19, technically fit better than the full ACE moderation model,
2(6) 54.89, p .0001, AIC 2448.09. However, examination
of the plot of the full ACE model revealed a clearly visible effect
of A and C, thus convincing us that the full moderation model best
represented the true nature of the moderation of Regard by PEM.
Figure 2 shows the results of estimates from the full ACE moderation model, in which all three ACE variance components for
Regard vary as functions of PEM (shown as z scores from 2 to
2). As PEM increases, the genetic variance of Regard increases,
whereas both the shared and nonshared environmental effects
decrease.
With no moderation, the proportion of variance in individual
differences in Regard (from a bivariate decomposition model with
PEM) is 40.2% genetic, 31.4% shared environmental, and 28.4%
nonshared environmental. This is very similar to the results from
the moderation model at a mean level (z score of 0) of PEM (h2
.44, c2 .30, e2 .27). As Table 3 shows, however, the genetic
component of variance increases from low to high levels of PEM;
because the total phenotypic variance in Regard decreases from
low to high levels of PEM, the heritability of Regard is greatest
when PEM is greatest. At low levels of PEM, Regard is largely due
2

Results for models using the square transformed and truncated data are
available from Susan C. South.
3
Variance component estimates for parenting are presented at five levels
of personality, but they could easily be extended to any personality score
found in the population.

ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY MODERATES RELATIONSHIPS

907

Table 3
Estimates of Unstandardized and Standardized Variance Components and Genetic and Environmental Correlations in ParentAdolescent Relationship Quality and the Personality Moderating Variables
Moderating variable
Variance components
Relationship quality
variable

Proportions of variance
E

Total
variance

Correlations with moderator

A(%)

C(%)

E(%)

rA

rC

rE

PEM
Regard
No-moderation model
PEM level
2
1
0
1
2
Conflict
No-moderation model
PEM level
2
1
0
1
2

0.40

0.32

0.29

1.00

0.40

0.31

0.28

.23

1.00

.18

0.22
0.31
0.42
0.55
0.69

0.69
0.46
0.28
0.15
0.05

0.43
0.33
0.26
0.20
0.15

1.34
1.11
0.96
0.89
0.90

0.16
0.28
0.44
0.62
0.77

0.52
0.42
0.30
0.16
0.06

0.32
0.30
0.27
0.22
0.17

.17
.23
.27
.31
.33

1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00

.36
.28
.18
.04
.14

0.56

0.17

0.26

0.99

0.56

0.18

0.26

.06

1.00

.15

0.74
0.64
0.54
0.46
0.39

0.01
0.07
0.17
0.33
0.53

0.28
0.26
0.24
0.23
0.23

1.04
0.96
0.95
1.02
1.16

0.72
0.66
0.57
0.45
0.34

0.01
0.07
0.18
0.32
0.46

0.27
0.27
0.25
0.23
0.20

.18
.12
.05
.03
.13

1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00

.39
.28
.15
.01
.12

NEM
Regard
No-moderation model
NEM level
2
1
0
1
2
Involvement
No-moderation model
NEM level
2
1
0
1
2

0.40

0.31

0.29

1.00

0.40

0.31

0.28

.28

1.00

.18

0.36
0.36
0.36
0.36
0.36

0.09
0.20
0.36
0.56
0.81

0.20
0.24
0.28
0.32
0.38

0.65
0.79
0.99
1.24
1.54

0.55
0.45
0.36
0.29
0.23

0.13
0.25
0.36
0.45
0.52

0.32
0.30
0.28
0.26
0.25

.35
.35
.35
.35
.35

1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00

.36
.27
.18
.10
.03

0.44

0.29

0.27

1.00

0.45

0.29

0.27

.31

1.00

.20

0.24
0.32
0.44
0.60
0.79

0.28
0.28
0.28
0.28
0.28

0.26
0.26
0.26
0.26
0.26

0.78
0.86
0.98
1.13
1.32

0.31
0.38
0.45
0.53
0.59

0.36
0.33
0.29
0.25
0.21

0.33
0.30
0.26
0.23
0.19

.63
.46
.32
.22
.14

1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00

.20
.20
.20
.20
.20

CN
Regard
No-moderation model
CN level
2
1
0
1
2

0.40

0.32

0.29

1.01

0.40

0.32

0.28

.40

1.00

.06

0.44
0.44
0.44
0.44
0.44

0.54
0.40
0.28
0.18
0.10

0.46
0.36
0.27
0.20
0.14

1.44
1.20
0.99
0.82
0.68

0.30
0.37
0.44
0.54
0.65

0.37
0.33
0.28
0.22
0.15

0.32
0.30
0.27
0.24
0.20

.32
.32
.32
.32
.32

1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00

.02
.02
.08
.15
.26

Note. A genetic variance; C shared environmental variance; E nonshared environmental variance. PEM Positive Emotionality; NEM
Negative Emotionality; CN Constraint.

to shared (c2 52%) and nonshared environmental effects (e2

32%), with a smaller contribution from genetic effects (h2 16%).
At high levels of PEM, a majority of the variance in Regard is due
to additive genetic effects (h2 77%), whereas nonshared environmental effects have decreased (e2 17%), and there are only
very small shared environmental effects (c2 6%).
Examination of the genetic correlations between Regard and
PEM reveal a somewhat stronger association between the genetic
influences on PEM and the genetic influences on Regard at high

levels of PEM (see rA in Table 3). The genetic correlation between

PEM and Regard increased from rA .17 at low levels of PEM
(2) to rA .33 at high levels of PEM (2). For adolescents who
are higher in PEM, there are more genetic influences common to
both this constellation of personality traits and the amount of
warmth in their relationship with both parents. Conversely, the
overlap between nonshared environmental influences on PEM and
Regard decreases as the level of PEM increases (where the proportion of variance attributable to E is lowest). Therefore, the

SOUTH, KRUEGER, JOHNSON, AND IACONO

908

Variance in Regard at Age 17

1.2

1.2

.9
A

.6

C
E

Variance

.9
Variance

Variance in Regard as a Function of

Positive Emotionality at Age 17
By Source of Variance

A
.6

C
E

.3

.3

.0

.0
-2

-1

-2

-1

Positive Emotionality in Standard Deviation Units

Positive Emotionality in Standard Deviation Units

Figure 2. A: No-moderation model of Regard and Positive Emotionality. B: Moderation model of Regard as
a function of Positive Emotionality. A genetic variance, C shared environmental variance, E nonshared
environmental variance.

variance in Regard due to nonshared environmental influences is

greater at low levels of PEM, and it is here that the nonshared
environmental correlation between PEM and Regard is greatest
(rE .36 at PEM of 2).
Moderation of Conflict by PEM. Figure 3 shows the best
fitting moderation model of PEM on Conflict. Again, although the
full moderation model was not technically the best fitting moderation model according to AIC and p value (see Table 2), it was
very close, and the plot of the full moderation model showed an
effect of A that justified its designation as the best fitting model.
As PEM increased, the genetic variance component of Conflict
decreased, the shared environmental variance increased, and the
nonshared environmental variance decreased slightly (see Table
3). Thus, at low levels of PEM, the proportion of variance in
Conflict was weighted heavily toward genetic (h2 72%) influences, with the rest mainly attributable to nonshared environmental

(e2 27%) effects. At high levels of PEM, proportion of variance

due to genetic effects was much smaller (h2 34%), whereas
shared environmental effects (c2 46%) increased dramatically
and unique environmental (e2 20%) effects decreased slightly.
The nonshared environmental correlation between PEM and Conflict decreased as levels of PEM increased, from rE .39 at PEM
of 2 to rE .12 at PEM of 2.
Moderation of Regard by NEM. In the best fitting moderation
model of Regard and NEM, there was significant moderation of
the C and E variance components (see Figure 4). Contrary to PEM,
for which the influence of shared environment on Regard was
largely negligible at higher levels of personality, shared environment was greater than genetic and nonshared environmental effects at high levels of NEM. The C and E variance components
increased as functions of NEM; as a result, there was greater total
variance in Regard at high levels of NEM. Thus, even though the

Variance in Conflict as a Function of

Positive Emotionality at Age 17
By Source of Variance

Variance in Regard as a Function of

Negative Emotionality at Age 17
By Source of Variance

1.2

.9

A
.6

C
E

Variance

Variance

.9
A

.6

C
E

.3

.3

.0

.0

-2

-1

Positive Emotionality in Standard Deviation Units

Figure 3. Variance in Conflict as a function of Positive Emotionality.

A genetic variance, C shared environmental variance, E nonshared
environmental variance.

-2

-1
0
1
Negative Emotionality in
Standard Deviation Units

Figure 4. Variance in Regard as a function of Negative Emotionality.

A genetic variance, C shared environmental variance, E nonshared
environmental variance.

ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY MODERATES RELATIONSHIPS

genetic variance remained stable from low to high levels of NEM,

the proportion of variance due to genetic effects declined. At low
levels of NEM (2), most of the variance in Regard was split
between genetic (h2 55%) and nonshared environmental effects
(e2 32%). However, at high levels of NEM (2), the proportion
of variance was weighted more heavily toward shared environment
(h2 23%, c2 52%, e2 25%). The overlap between unique
environmental influences on Regard and NEM were greatest at
low levels of NEM (rE .36 at NEM of 2 SD).
It is interesting that, as with the results for PEM and Conflict,
when the valence (i.e., positively vs. negatively tinged) of the
relationship and the valence of the personality trait are mismatched, the etiology of the relationship variable is more attributable to shared environmental effects at higher levels of the
personality trait. That is, C effects increase with increasing levels
of personality when either (a) the parenting variable measures a
positive aspect of the relationship (Regard) and the personality
variable is a relatively more negative trait (NEM) or (b) when the
parent variable measures a negative aspect of the relationship
(Conflict) and the personality trait is relatively more positive
(PEM).
Moderation of Involvement by NEM. In the best fitting moderation model, only the A variance component of Involvement was
significantly moderated by NEM (see Figure 5). As the level of
Involvement increased, the genetic variance increased; because the
C and E variance components were stable across all levels of
NEM, this resulted in greater phenotypic variance and higher
heritability at high levels of NEM. At low levels of NEM, the
proportions of variance due to genetic and environmental effects
were almost equally divided (h2 31%, c2 36%, e2 33%).
The proportion of variance due to genetic effects almost doubled
from low to high levels of NEM (h2 59% at SD 2).
However, the genetic correlation between Involvement and NEM
decreased from low to high levels of NEM. Even though genetic
effects had a greater influence on Involvement at high levels of
NEM, the types of genetic effects operating on Involvement and
NEM were different.

Variance in Involvement as a Function of

Negative Emotionality at Age 17
By Source of Variance

Variance

.9

.6

C
E

.3

.0
-2

-1
0
1
Negative Emotionality in
Standard Deviation Units

909

Moderation of Regard by CN. The results of moderation analysis for Regard and CN were similar to the moderation model of
Regard and PEM, although in the best fitting model for Regard and
CN, moderation was significant for C and E only. The influences
on Regard shifted from an almost equal distribution of the proportion of variance among all three components at low levels of
CN to largely genetic influences at higher levels of CN (see Figure
6 and the values in Table 3, which show the ACE decomposition
of Regard as a function of CN). Estimates derived from the
moderation model show a decrease in both sources of environmental variance, from c2 37%, e2 32% at low CN to c2
15%, e2 20% at high CN.
Notably different from the moderation of Regard by PEM,
however, was the finding of greater nonshared environmental
influences between Regard and CN at higher levels of CN. The
nonshared environmental correlation between CN and Regard increased with increasing levels of CN. For adolescents higher in
CN, the presence of these nonshared environmental influences
common to CN and Regard suggest a within-family selection
process linking the two.
Extension of analyses to both sources of report on parent
adolescent relationship. Because we used a composite report of
parentadolescent relationship, we also conducted analyses separately for the mothers and adolescents perspective of the relationship, to determine if the pattern of results differed depending
on the reporter. In general, the results for the composite report are
closer to the results found using adolescent report rather than
mother report. Using the raw scores for adolescent report, we
found that six of the seven moderation models that were significant
in the composite report were also significant (PEM and Regard,
Conflict; NEM and Regard, Conflict, Involvement; CN and Regard), whereas for mother report of the relationship, five of the
same models that were significant for composite report were also
an improvement over the no-moderation models (PEM with Conflict; NEM with Regard, Conflict, Involvement; CN with Regard).
However, when transformed scores were used, moderation models
fit better for four of the same five models using adolescent-only
report as when the composite measure was used (PEM with
Regard, Conflict; NEM with Regard; CN with Regard), whereas
moderation models using mother report were significant for only
two of the same models as when the composite measure was used
(NEM and Regard, Involvement). Given the moderately strong,
but not perfect, nature of the correlation between mother and
adolescent report of the relationship, we feel that the composite
report most likely is the best way to capture the parentadolescent
relationship. Differences in moderation of the etiology of the
parentadolescent relationship depending on the reporter are difficult to interpret, especially because there is no theory to guide
why results would or would not be different. Complete results for
moderation analyses of the parentadolescent relationship (as reported by the mother and the adolescent) can be obtained from
Susan C. South.

Figure 5. Variance in Involvement as a function of Negative Emotionality. A genetic variance, C shared environmental variance, E
nonshared environmental variance.

Discussion
In the developmental context of the family, it appears that
personality and interpersonal relationships are involved in a bidirectional process of reinforcement. The goal of the current study
was to examine whether personality traits can moderate genetic

SOUTH, KRUEGER, JOHNSON, AND IACONO

910

Variance in Regard as a Function of

Constraint at Age 17
By Source of Variance

1.2

Variance

.9

A
.6

C
E

.3

.0
-2

-1

Constraint in Standard Deviation Units

Figure 6. Variance in Regard as a function of Constraint. A genetic

variance, C shared environmental variance, E nonshared environmental variance.

and environmental influences on positive and negative qualities of

the parentadolescent relationship. Specifically, we used a sample
of more than 2,400 individual twins at a mean age of 17 years to
examine whether adolescent personality traits of NEM, PEM, and
CN moderated the genetic and environmental contributions to
three aspects of the parentadolescent relationshipnamely, Regard, Conflict, and Involvement. We found (a) significant moderation of all three features of the parent relationship by these
personality traits and (b) changes in the genetic and environmental
correlations between personality and parenting at different levels
of personality. The present studys large sample size was a notable
strength. Of course, it is possible that with an even larger sample
size, we may have found significant moderation in the four models
in which moderation was not detected (i.e., PEM and Involvement,
NEM and Conflict, CN and Conflict, CN and Involvement).
The goal of the current study was to extend previous work
examining genetic and environmental influences on the relationship between personality and parent relationship quality. Our results support previous research that attributed genetic and environmental influences on perceptions of the family environment to
personality traits (Krueger et al., 2003). Further, our findings
suggest that whether a genotype will lead to positive or negative
aspects of the parent relationship depends on the personality of the
adolescent. Beginning with the groundbreaking work of Rowe
(1981, 1983), behavior genetic methods have been used to show
that putatively environment measures have a sizeable genetic
component. Prior work from the MTFS that examined the parenting measures used in the current study found small to moderate
heritability estimates (Elkins et al., 1997) that tended to increase
with age of the adolescent (McGue et al., 2005). In accord with
these results, we found that aspects of the parent relationship were
moderately heritable. In the no-moderation models, which again
are comparable to standard bivariate decomposition models, 40%
of the variance in Regard, 56% of the variance in Conflict, and
45% of the variance in Involvement was due to genetic effects,
with the rest of the variance attributed generally equally to shared
and nonshared environment. We also found moderate genetic

correlations between aspects of the parentadolescent relationship

and adolescent personality traits, which is consistent with prior
research findings that the heritability of family and parenting
measures is due, at least in part, to the characteristics (i.e., personality traits) of the family members (Chipuer et al., 1993;
Krueger et al., 2003).
The limitation in these prior studies (and in the results of our
own unmoderated models) is that estimates of genetic and environmental influences from univariate models and estimates of
genetic correlations from bivariate models of personality and family environment are static and fixed across the entire population.
Newer models that test for biometrical moderation, or gene
environment interaction, examine whether genetic and environmental influences may differ in different environments. Conceptually, the idea is similar to examining differences in the main
effect of a variable across different groups. For example, does the
effect of a reading intervention (main effect) differ between men
and women (groups)? Now, extending this idea to the realm of
biometrical modeling, we replace the main effect with genetic and
environmental influences (here, on parenting behaviors) and different groups with different levels of a moderator variable (here,
personality traits). Thus, we have the ability to calculate a specific
heritability estimate for an individual dependent on where that
person falls along the dimension of a second, moderating variable
(Purcell, 2002).
A major contribution of the current study was the finding that,
for aspects of warmth, conflict, and involvement in the parent
adolescent relationship, the relative contribution of genetic and
environmental influences varied as a function of the adolescents
amount of negative emotionality, positive emotionality, or constraint. Specifically, we found that PEM, NEM, and CN significantly moderated the genetic and environmental influences on
Parental Regard, PEM significantly moderated the etiology of
Conflict, and NEM moderated the etiology of Involvement. Along
with variations in the proportion of variance due to genes and
environmental influences, we found different levels of genetic and
environmental correlations between personality and parenting at
varying levels of personality. These moderation models present a
fuller picture of the relative influence of genes and environment on
the etiology of the parentadolescent relationship.
When we considered only the static parameter estimates from a
no-moderation model, the etiology of Regard was weighted toward
genetic influences but with sizable shared and nonshared environmental influences. Results from moderation models tell a more
nuanced story. The total phenotypic variance in Regard was generally lowest, and the heritability highest, at the most positive level
of the personality trait; that is, at high levels of positive emotionality and constraint and low levels of negative emotionality. Adolescents with the greatest levels of positively valenced personality
traits had a level of Regard in their relationship with their parents
that better reflected their genotype. This is an example of genes
operating differently in different environments being high in
positive emotionality or constraint (or low in negative emotionality) allows for the expression of a genetic predisposition to positive
aspects of the parentadolescent relationship.
Our findings provide further empirical support for the role of
adolescent personality in the quality of the parentadolescent
relationship. The etiology of the parentadolescent relationship
appears to differ depending on the adolescents level of certain

ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY MODERATES RELATIONSHIPS

personality traits. Shiner and Caspi (2003) outlined six possible

mechanisms that shape personality development. The unique finding from the current study is that it is not simply one of these
processes at work for any given combination of personality trait
and aspect of parentingthe type of mechanism depends on the
level of the personality trait. For example, the substantial heritability and moderate genetic overlap found between positive emotionality and regard at the extreme high end of personality suggests
that at least some of the same genes that influence personality also
influence the parentadolescent relationship. This could simply be
an example of a more even-tempered adolescent eliciting more
positive parenting behaviors or, at least in part, construing their
parents actions in a more positive light. Alternatively, the low
heritability and substantial shared environmental influence on regard found at low levels of PEM may indicate a process whereby
an adolescent with low levels of positive emotions will compare
themselves, possibly unfavorably, with their siblings, and thus, his
or her relationship with the parents will be based on common
factors shared by the parents and all siblings within the household.
One of the most consistent findings from the current analysis
was the importance of shared environment, particularly at extremely high or low levels of personality. Even in the nomoderation models, shared environmental effects had a sizeable
influence on the variance in Regard, Conflict, and Involvement.
These effects were enhanced or diminished depending on the level
of the personality trait. For instance, at lower levels of positive
(PEM, CN) and higher levels of negative (NEM) personality traits,
the amount of Regard in the parentadolescent relationships was
more attributable to factors shared within the family than to
genetics or unique environment. When an adolescent has a less
even-tempered personality, the quality of the parentadolescent
relationship is due largely to factors that are shared in common
with other family members. Thus, a more difficult teenager may
have a relationship with his or her parent that is based on a
standard set of rules and interactions shared by all children in the
house. Shared environmental influences have been notoriously
difficult to detect across a range of phenotypes (Rowe, 1994),
leading some to conclude that family has little influence on personality development (Harris, 1995, 1998). The finding of significant shared environmental effects on individual differences in
parenting behaviors strengthens the argument for using these new
moderation models (Purcell, 2002)shared environmental effects
may be particularly important for certain people within the population but are lost when estimates are averaged across the whole
sample.
It is well established at this point that most psychological
phenomena are heritable (Turkheimer, 2000). The field of behavior genetics must now move beyond static estimates of heritability
and genetic and environmental correlations toward elucidation of
how genetic influences and environment transact. The current
article provides evidence that differences in personality can affect
the etiology of parent relationship quality. An obvious extension of
this work is to examine the dynamic influences of personality traits
on relationship quality over time. The stability of personality
generally increases from childhood to adulthood (Roberts &
DelVecchio, 2000), but personality is already more stable than
relationship quality in adolescence (Branje et al., 2004) and young
adulthood (Asendorpf & Wilpers, 1998). Further, both personality
(McGue, Bacon, & Lykken, 1993) and aspects of family environ-

911

ment (McGue et al., 2005) become more heritable over time.

Longitudinal biometric models could help to determine whether
the increasing stability in personality is related to expression of
genetic variance and articulate how genetic and environmental
transactions unfold over time.

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Received March 19, 2007

Revision received December 13, 2007
Accepted January 3, 2008