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The Analysis of Marital Interaction in Cross-Sectional Twin Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

A.C. Heath
A.C. Heath*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Genetics, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, USA
*
Department of Human Genetics, Box 33, MCV Station, Richmond VA 23298, USA

Abstract

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The effects on twin data of social interaction between spouses is examined. When social interaction leads to an increase in marital resemblance (eg through reciprocal imitation), the variance of married individuals is increased, compared to the variance of unmarried individuals. Furthermore, the expected correlations between concordant married twin pairs will be lower than the expected correlations between concordant unmarried twin pairs, with the discordant twin correlations being intermediate in value. It is therefore possible, in principle, to detect the effects of marital interaction without using either longitudinal data or data on spouse pairs. However, to be detectable in twin data, marital interaction must be strong, or must exhibit marked asymmetry of effects between males and females. Genotype × environment interaction can also produce heterogeneity of correlation between concordant married, discordant, and concordant unmarried twin pairs, when genetic and environmental effects interact with marital status. However, this will usually produce increased estimates of the genetic component of variance in unmarried twins, whereas marital interaction produces increased genetic variance in married twins.

Keywords

Marital interactionMate selectionGenotype × environment interaction
Type
Research Article
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 1987 , pp. 41 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1987

References

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