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Health Related Psychosocial Correlates of Neuroticism: A Study of Adult Male Twins in Finland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

M. Koskenvuo ,
H. Langinvainio ,
J. Kaprio  and
S. Sarna
M. Koskenvuo*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health Science, University of Helsinki
H. Langinvainio
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health Science, University of Helsinki
J. Kaprio
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health Science, University of Helsinki
S. Sarna
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health Science, University of Helsinki
*
Department of Public Health Science, University of Helsinki, Haartmaninkatu 3, 00290 Helsinki 29, Finland

Abstract

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Some health related psychosocial correlates of the Eysenck neuroticism scale were examined in a questionnaire study of 1501 monozygotic (MZ) and 3455 dizygotic (DZ) male twin pairs representing the adult male twin population in Finland. In analyses of the individuals, 34% of the variance in neuroticism was associated to: psychological variables (stress of daily activities, life satisfaction, quality of sleep, and extroversion – the explanatory rate of this variable set was 30%), psychotropic drugs (5%), alcohol use (4%), and smoking (2%). Neuroticism was also associated to social, life change, and medical variables. In pairwise analyses, the heritability estimate (h2) was 0.54 for pairs living together and 0.39 for pairs living apart. It seems that heritability estimates are confounded by the closer intrapair relationship between members of MZ than DZ pairs. In pairwise analyses, 23% of the intrapair difference of neuroticism in MZ pairs was associated to intrapair differences in the aforementioned variables. The following explanatory rates were found: psychological variables, 21%; psychotropic drugs, 2%; alcohol use, 2%; and smoking, 1%. Neuroticism of pairs discordant for background variables showed similar intrapair differences as between individuals in the following variables: service vs farming work, use of alcohol, use of antacids, hypertension, heavy physical work, quality of sleep, changes of workplace for negative reasons, smoking, and use of tranquillizers. It appears that in Finland environmental factors explain at least 61% of the variability in neuroticism, and that factors determining neuroticism are also associated to health related behavior such as smoking, use of alcohol and psychotropic drugs.

Keywords

NeuroticismPsychosocial factorsSmokingAlcoholHeritabilityDiscordant twin pair analysis
Type
Genetics of Psychopathology
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 307 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1984

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