Paternal antisocial behavior and sons' cognitive ability: : a population-based quasiexperimental study

• Autores: Antti Latvala, Ralf Kuja-Halkola, Niklas Långström, Paul Lichtenstein
• Localización: Psychological Science, ISSN-e 1467-9280, Vol. 26, Nº. 1, 2015, págs. 78-88
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Parents� antisocial behavior is associated with developmental risks for their offspring, but its effects on their children�s cognitive ability are unknown. We used linked Swedish register data for a large sample of adolescent men (N = 1,177,173) and their parents to estimate associations between fathers� criminal-conviction status and sons� cognitive ability assessed at compulsory military conscription. Mechanisms behind the association were tested in children-of-siblings models across three types of sibling fathers with increasing genetic relatedness (half-siblings, full siblings, and monozygotic twins) and in quantitative genetic models. Sons whose fathers had a criminal conviction had lower cognitive ability than sons whose fathers had no conviction (any crime: Cohen�s d = -0.28; violent crime: Cohen�s d = -0.49). As models adjusted for more genetic factors, the association was gradually reduced and eventually eliminated. Nuclear-family environmental factors did not contribute to the association. Our results suggest that the association between men�s antisocial behavior and their children�s cognitive ability is not causal but is due mostly to underlying genetic factors.