Nature and Nurture during Infancy and Early Childhood

This 1988 book uses quantitative genetics to offer a general theory of the development of individual differences, drawing upon the Colorado Adoption Project.

Robert Plomin (Author), John C. DeFries (Author), David W. Fulker (Author)

9780521034241, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 December 2006

360 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.546 kg

Quantitative genetics offers a general theory of the development of individual differences that suggests novel concepts and research strategies: the idea that genetic influences operate in age-to-age change as well as in continuity for example. Quantitative genetics also provides powerful methods to address questions of change and continuity, including model-fitting approaches that test the fit between a specific model of genetic and environmental influences and observed correlations among family members, which are here helpfully introduced. A simple parent and offspring model is extended to include longitudinal and multivariate analyses. Longitudinal quantitative genetic research is essential to the understanding of developmental change and continuity. The largest and longest longitudinal adoption study is the Colorado Adoption Project, which has generated much of the rich data on the progress from infancy to early childhood on which the authors draw throughout this 1988 book. Their conclusions about what we know, and what we need to learn, about the origins of individual differences will interest a wide range of readers.

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. Individual differences and group differences
3. Quantitative genetics as the basis for a general theory of individual differences
4. The Colorado Adoption Project
5. Transitions and changes: description and prediction
6. Transitions and changes: genetic and environmental etiologies
7. Introduction to model fitting
8. Fitting sibling and parent-offspring models in the Colorado Adoption Project
9. Interactions
10. Genotype-environment correlation
11. Genetics and measures of the family environment: the nature of nurture
12. Conclusions
References
Author index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Child & developmental psychology [JMC]