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The Magnitude of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Parental and Observational Measures of Behavioral Inhibition and Shyness in Toddlerhood

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Abstract

Behavioral inhibition is a temperamental trait that refers to slow approach to novel items, shyness towards new people, and fearfulness in new situations, and individuals may develop inhibited response styles by as early as 2 years of age. There are important methodological considerations in the assessment of early temperament, with parental report and observational measures providing both corroborative and unique data. The present study examined behavioral inhibition measured by parental report and observational measures in a genetically informative sample to delineate the agreement between the methods and the uniqueness of each method, and to estimate the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on the common and unique variance. The biometric, psychometric, and rater bias models were conducted to study the covariance between measurement modalities. Overall, the results suggested a common phenotype was assessed by both parents and observers. The latent phenotype underlying parental and observational measures of behavioral inhibition was moderately to substantially heritable.

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Notes

  1. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) were conducted in Mplus to determine the factor structure of the home shyness variables. The variables loading on the “Approach” factor were average shyness, proximity to the researcher, and playing with the novel toy. The variables loading on the “Cling” factor were proximity to mother, touching mother, and clinging to mother.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the MacArthur Foundation, and grants NIH HD010333, HD050346, HD007289, and MH063207. The authors thank the participants and research assistants for their participation and assistance with this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Ashley K. Smith, Soo H. Rhee & John K. Hewitt

  2. Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Ashley K. Smith, Soo H. Rhee, Robin P. Corley, Naomi P. Friedman & John K. Hewitt

  3. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    JoAnn L. Robinson

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  1. Ashley K. Smith
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  2. Soo H. Rhee
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  3. Robin P. Corley
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  5. John K. Hewitt
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  6. JoAnn L. Robinson
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Correspondence to Ashley K. Smith.

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Edited by Yoon-Mi Hur.

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Smith, A.K., Rhee, S.H., Corley, R.P. et al. The Magnitude of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Parental and Observational Measures of Behavioral Inhibition and Shyness in Toddlerhood. Behav Genet 42, 764–777 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-012-9551-0

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