(Press-News.org) EAST LANSING, Mich. — Scientists have presented the most conclusive evidence yet that genes play a significant role in parenting.
A study by two Michigan State University psychologists refutes the popular theory that how adults parent their children is strictly a function of the way they were themselves parented when they were children.
While environmental factors do play a role in parenting, so do a person's genes, said S. Alexandra Burt, associate professor of psychology and co-author of a study led by doctoral student Ashlea M. Klahr.
"The way we parent is not solely a function of the way we were parented as children," Burt said. "There also appears to be genetic influences on parenting."
Klahr and Burt conducted a statistical analysis of 56 scientific studies from around the world on the origins of parenting behavior, including some of their own. The comprehensive analysis, involving more than 20,000 families from Australia to Japan to the United States, found that genetic influences in the parents account for 23 percent to 40 percent of parental warmth, control and negativity towards their children.
"What's still not clear, however, is whether genes directly influence parenting or do so indirectly, through parent personality for example," Klahr said.
The study sheds light on another misconception: that parenting is solely a top-down process from parent to child. While parents certainly seem to shape child behavior, parenting also is influenced by the child's behavior – in other words, parenting is both a cause and a consequence of child behavior.
"One of the most consistent and striking findings to emerge from this study was the important role that children's characteristics play in shaping all aspects of parenting," the authors write.
Ultimately, parenting styles stem from many factors.
"Parents have their own experiences when they were children, their own personalities, their own genes. On top of that, they are also responding to their child's behaviors and stage of development," Burt said. "Basically, there are a lot of influences happening simultaneously. Long story short, though, we need to be sensitive to the fact that this is a two-way process between parent and child that is both environmental and genetic."
INFORMATION:The study is published in Psychological Bulletin, a research journal of the American Psychological Association.
Genes play key role in parenting
2014-03-20
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Surgery after major stroke also improves survival odds in elderly patients
2014-03-20
Patients who are over the age of 60 and have suffered a major stroke due to blockage of the middle cerebral artery benefit from hemicraniectomy – removal of part of the skull located above the affected brain tissue. The procedure relieves increased pressure on the brain in the first 48 hours after the stroke. These patients' chances of survival increase two-fold if they undergo surgery. However, patients who have been operated on often survive with severe disabilities, while patients who do not undergo the surgery generally die quickly. These findings were obtained in a ...
Cognitive function and oral perception in independently-living octogenarians
2014-03-20
Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, at the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Kazunori Ikebe, from Osaka University, Japan, will present a research study titled "Cognitive Function and Oral Perception in Independently-living Octogenarians."
In this study, researchers hypothesized that the decline of cognitive impairment is involved in oral perceptions since its preclinical stage. The aim of this study was to examine association ...
Amphibians and dinosaurs were the new large predators after the mass extinction
2014-03-20
252 million years ago the largest extinction event occurred at the end of the Permian age. It wiped out almost 90 percent of all life in water. So far researchers had assumed that the ecosystems gradually recovered from this catastrophe over a long stretch of eight to nine million years and that large predators at the uppermost end of the food chain were the last to reappear. A Swiss-American team of palaeontologists headed by Torsten Scheyer and Carlo Romano from the University of Zurich demonstrate in their new study that the food nets during the Early Triassic did not ...
Elsevier's Maturitas publishes position statement on menopause for medical students
2014-03-20
Amsterdam, March 20, 2014 – Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a position statement by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) in the journal Maturitas on the topic of the essential menopause curriculum for medical students.
The menopause, or the cessation of the menstrual cycle, is the result of ovarian aging and is a natural event experienced by most women in their late 40s or early 50s. With increasing longevity the menopause can now be considered ...
Shrink wrap used to enhance detection of infectious disease biomarkers
2014-03-20
WASHINGTON, March 20—Detecting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly infectious diseases as early as possible helps to prevent their rapid spread and allows for more effective treatments. But current detection methods are cost-prohibitive in most areas of the world. Now a new nanotechnology method—employing common, everyday shrink wrap—may make highly sensitive, extremely low-cost diagnosis of infectious disease agents possible.
The new technique, described in a paper published today in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Optical Materials Express, offers ...
Inhibition of oral biofilm and cell-cell communication using natural-products derivatives
2014-03-20
Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Steve Kasper, SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Albany, will present research titled "Inhibition of Oral Biofilm and Cell-cell Communication Using Natural-products Derivatives."
Many plant metabolites and structurally similar derivatives have been identified as inhibitors of bacterial biofilm formation and quorum sensing (QS). Previously, ...
Research brings new control over topological insulator
2014-03-20
An international team of scientists investigating the electronic properties of ultra-thin films of new materials – topological insulators (TIs) - has demonstrated a new method to tune their unique properties using strain.
Topological insulators are new materials with surfaces that host a new quantum state of matter and are insensitive to contaminants, defects and impurities. Surface electrons in TIs behave like massless Dirac particles in a similar way to electrons in graphene. Moreover, surface currents in topological insulators also preserve their spin orientation and ...
E3-production -- sustainable manufacturing
2014-03-20
This news release is available in German.
Industrial manufacturing is pivotal to Germany's prosperity. Not only does manufacturing account for a quarter of GDP, it provides a third of jobs as well. Yet rising raw material and energy costs, coupled with a demographic shift, pose significant challenges for industry. Keeping manufacturing operations in Germany will require a fundamental shift away from maximum profit from minimal capital investment toward maximum added value from minimum resources.
Initiating and effecting this change is what Fraunhofer's E3-production ...
Resin infiltration effects in a caries-active environment -- 2 year results
2014-03-20
Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Mathilde C. Peters, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, will present research titled "Resin Infiltration Effects in a Caries-Active Environment – 2 Year Results."
The objective of this study was to compare carious lesion changes after resin infiltration of approximal non-cavitated lesions in a high caries risk population after two years. Resin infiltration ...
Thermal conductance can be controlled like waves using nanostructures
2014-03-20
Thermal conduction is a familiar everyday phenomenon. In a hot sauna, for instance, you can sit comfortably on a wooden bench that has a temperature of 100C (212F), but if you touch a metallic nail with the same temperature, you will hurt yourself. The difference of these two experiences is due to the fact that some materials, such as metals, conduct heat well, whereas some other materials, such as wood, do not. It is therefore commonly thought that thermal conductance is simply a materials parameter. Now, researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, led by Professor ...