Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
8639155
TITLE
Genetics of educational attainment in Australian twins: sex differences and secular changes.
ABSTRACT
The relative effects of genetic and environmental factors in producing individual differences in educational achievement are compared across women and men and over birth cohorts. In a large sample of Australian twin pairs, the heritability of self-reported educational attainment did not vary among women and men born before and after 1950. In a "psychometric" model of twin resemblance, based on separate self-reports in 1981 and 1989, genetic factors explained 57% of the stable variance in educational achievement, while environmental factors shared by twins accounted for 24% of the variance. Corrections for phenotypic assortative mating for educational level, however, suggested that estimated common-environmental effects could be entirely explained by the correlation between additive genetic values for mates. Taking this into account, heritability "true" educational attainment in Australia may be as high as 82% with the remaining variation being due to individual environments or experiences. Unlike previous studies in Scandinavian countries, results in Australia suggest that factors influencing educational success are comparable between women and men and for individuals born at different points during this century.
DATE PUBLISHED
1996 Mar
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 1996/03/01
medline 1996/03/01 00:01
entrez 1996/03/01 00:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Baker LA Baker L A LA Department of Psychology, SGM 501, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90089-1061 USA. Ibaker@rcf.usc.edu.
Treloar SA Treloar S A SA
Reynolds CA Reynolds C A CA
Heath AC Heath A C AC
Martin NG Martin N G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 26
ISSUE: 2
TITLE: Behavior genetics
ISOABBREVIATION: Behav. Genet.
YEAR: 1996
MONTH: Mar
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 0001-8244
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Behav Genet
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0001-8244
NLMUNIQUEID: 0251711
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA07535 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adult
Aged
Australia
Cohort Studies
Educational Status
Female
Humans
Intelligence genetics
Male genetics
Middle Aged genetics
Phenotype genetics
Sex Characteristics genetics
Social Environment genetics
Twins genetics
Twins, Dizygotic psychology
Twins, Monozygotic psychology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's