E M Hetherington

Separate social worlds of siblings: The impact of nonshared environment on development.

Contents: Preface. R. Plomin, H.M. Chipuer, J.M. Neiderhiser, Behavioral Genetic Evidence for the Importance of Nonshared Environment. M.J. Rovine, Estimating Nonshared Environment Using Sibling Discrepancy Scores. D. Reiss, R. Plomin, E.M. Hetherington, G.W. Howe, M. Rovine, A. Tryon, M.S. Hagan, The Separate Worlds of Teenage Siblings: An Introduction to the Study of the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development. J. Dunn, S. McGuire, Young Childrens Nonshared Experiences: A Summary of Studies in Cambridge and Colorado. G. Brody, Z. Stoneman, Sibling Relationships and Their Association With Parental Differential Treatment. M. Tejerina-Allen, B.M. Wagner, P. Cohen, A Comparison of Across-Family and Within-Family Parenting Predictors of Adolescent Psychopathology and Suicidal Ideation. D.C. Rowe, E.J. Woulbroun, B.L. Gulley, Peers and Friends as Nonshared Environmental Influences. C.K. Ewart, Nonshared Environments and Heart Disease Risk: Concepts and Data for a Model of Coronary-Prone Behavior. J.E. Deal, C.F. Halverson, Jr., K.S. Wampler, Sibling Similarity as an Individual Differences Variable: Within-Family Measures of Shared Environment.

Adolescents' relationships to siblings and mothers: A multivariate genetic analysis.

Research has consistently demonstrated that childrens behavior toward their siblings tends to resemble interactions occurring in the parent-child relationship. This study examined the relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences to the covariation between sibling relationships and mother-adolescent relationships. Reported and observed family interactions were assessed for 719 same-sex sibling pairs of varying degrees of genetic relatedness. The covariance between mother-adolescent and sibling interactions was decomposed into genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental components. The overlapping effects of shared environment on the two relationship subsystems explained most of the covariance. Smaller but significant genetic and nonshared environmental effects were also found. The consistency of these findings with family processes, such as modeling, is discussed.

The Importance of Shared Environmental Influences in Explaining the Overlap between Mother's Parenting and Sibling Relationships: Reply to Neale (1999).

This article addresses concerns raised by M. C. Neale (1999) in his commentary on the D. A. Bussell et al. (1999) Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development (NEAD) study. These concerns fall into two categories: (a) model assumptions and sample design and (b) testing of alternative models. The validity of the assumptions of quantitative genetic models is a concern for all researchers in this area. Discussion of those assumptions in this reply is brief and focuses on those most relevant to the NEAD sample. The two alternative models proposed by Neale were designed to provide alternatives to the large shared environmental effect found in the original report of Bussell et al. Because these alternative models did not provide a better fit, the appropriateness of Bussell et al.s basic model and the importance of shared environmental influences for explaining the association among family subsystems are supported.