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Genetic and Environmental Influences on Marital Relationships

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Author

  • Erica L. Spotts
  • Jenae M. Neiderhiser
  • Hilary Towers
  • Kjell Hansson
  • Paul Lichtenstein
  • Marianne Cederblad
  • Nancy L. Pedersen
  • David Reiss

Summary, in English

As most adults will marry at least once during their lifetime, studying marital quality and its predictors is of great importance. The current study addresses (a) the extent of agreement between husbands and wives on their marital quality, (b) genetic and environmental sources of individual differences on spouse reports of marital quality, and (c) the extent to which genetic and environmental influences account for overlap of spouse reports on marital quality. Adult Swedish twin women and their partners participated in this study. Genotype-environment (GE) correlations were found for marital quality, suggesting that wives' genetically influenced characteristics set a tone for the marriage. Wives' genetically influenced characteristics also accounted for overlap of spouse reports of marital quality. Finally, nonshared environmental influences were the primary contributor to both individual reports and the overlap of spouse reports, an interesting deviation from findings of behavior genetic studies of other types of relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

107-119

Publication/Series

Journal of Family Psychology

Volume

18

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

American Psychological Association (APA)

Topic

  • Social Work

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0893-3200