Biomedical subjects

John C Loehlin

Publications and source records attributed to John C Loehlin.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Genotype by environment interaction in adolescents' cognitive aptitude.

In a replication of Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron, D'Onofrio, Gottesman II (2003, Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children. Psychological Science, 14:623-628), we investigate genotype-environment (G x E) interaction in the cognitive aptitude of 839 twin pairs who completed the National Merit Scholastic Qualifying Test in 1962. Shared environmental influences were stronger for adolescents from poorer homes, while genetic influences were stronger for adolescents from more affluent homes. No significant differences were found between parental income and parental education interaction effects. Results suggest that environmental differences between middle- to upper-class families influence the expression of genetic potential for intelligence, as has previously been suggested by Bronfenbrenner and Ceci's (1994, Nature-nurture reconceptualized in developmental perspective: a bioecological model Psychological Review, 101:568-586) bioecological model.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Population differences in finger-length ratios: ethnicity or latitude?

The relative length of the second and fourth fingers (the 2D:4D ratio) has been taken to be an indicator of prenatal exposure to testosterone, and hence possibly relevant to sexual orientation and other sex-differentiated behaviors. Studies have reported a difference in this ratio between Caucasian males in Britain and in the U.S.: higher average 2D:4D ratios were obtained in Britain. This raises the question of whether differences among different Caucasian gene pools were responsible or whether some environmental variable associated with latitude might be involved (e.g., exposure to sunlight or different day-length patterns). This question was explored by examining 2D:4D ratios for an Australian adolescent sample. The Australians were predominantly of British ancestry, but lived at distances from the equator more like those of the U.S. studies. The Australian 2D:4D ratios resembled those in Britain rather than those in the U.S., tending to exclude hypotheses related to latitude and making differences in gene pools a plausible explanation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

A reanalysis of five studies on sexual orientation and the relative length of the 2nd and 4th fingers (the 2D:4D ratio).

Five studies have examined the relationship between sexual orientation and the relative lengths of the 2nd and 4th fingers (the 2D:4D ratio). Although differences have commonly been found between heterosexuals and homosexuals, the direction of the difference has not been consistent across studies. The original data from all five studies were reanalyzed in a search for possible explanations of the discrepancies. Because ethnicity is known to affect the 2D:4D ratio, the reanalysis focused on participants who identified themselves as White or Caucasian, the ethnic group that was most numerous in all of the studies. Age differences did not account for the discrepancies. Differences in variability within different groups were minor. One interesting result to emerge from the reanalysis was that the 2D:4D ratios for the homosexual groups were relatively similar across studies. It was the 2D:4D values for the heterosexual participants that varied most, particularly between the USA and the British studies, and these were responsible for many of the discrepancies in the conclusions across studies. The constancy of the 2D:4D ratio for the White homosexuals did not appear to extend to homosexuals of three other ethnicities, and there were also subpopulation differences related to right or left hands.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Psychological masculinity-femininity via the gender diagnosticity approach: heritability and consistency across ages and populations.

Several aspects of the Gender Diagnosticity (GD) approach of Lippa (1995) to measuring the psychological trait of masculinity-femininity within sexes were explored in four samples ranging from 363 to 5,859 individuals, including Swedish and Australian adults, U.S. elderly, and Australian adolescents. Two ways of deriving GD scales yielded highly similar results. Moderate stability of individual differences was found across ages 12 to 16 among adolescents, but substantial shifts over age occurred in relationships with Eysenck scales. Considerable generality of GD scales was obtained across languages and populations. Substantial heritabilities (about 40%) and minimal effects of shared family environments suggest that within-sex masculinity-femininity behaves as a fairly typical personality trait. Cross-age continuity appeared mainly to reflect the influence of the genes.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Gender diagnosticity and androgen receptor gene CAG repeat sequence.

The gender diagnosticity (GD) approach of Lippa (1995) was used to evaluate the relationship of within-sex differences in psychological masculinity-femininity to a genetic characteristic, the length of a repeated CAG sequence in the X-linked androgen receptor (AR) gene. Previously assessed adult samples in Australia and Sweden were used for this purpose. A weak relationship (correlations in the range .11 to .14) was obtained in both countries. Additional data from adolescent twins from Australia (12-, 14-, 16-year-olds) did not confirm such a relationship at those ages, especially for males. The fact that this sample consisted of twins permitted two kinds of within-pair comparisons: (1) Did the dizygotic twin who had the longer AR sequence have the higher GD score? (2) Was one twin's GD score more highly correlated with the other twin's AR score in MZ than in DZ pairs? The answer in both cases was negative. Clarification of these relationships will require large samples and measurements at additional ages.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Otoacoustic emissions, auditory evoked potentials, and traits related to sex and sexual orientation.

A number of trait measures, possibly reflective of prenatal hormonal effects, were obtained in studies of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) and auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) carried out with male and female heterosexual and homosexual/bisexual college students. Most of the measures were from a self-report questionnaire; others were from experimenters' ratings or cognitive tests (Mental Rotation Test and Water Level Test). The questionnaire, test, and rating measures included physical characteristics (e.g., height, body type, eye color); spatial abilities; sex roles and sexual orientation; childhood gender nonconformity; and, in the OAE study, presence of homosexuality or bisexuality among relatives. Correlations with sexual orientation were most often consistent with the hypothesis that male homosexuals were undermasculinized and female homosexuals overmasculinized. Some correlations of the questionnaire, test, and rating measures with auditory measures were observed, but most of these were reduced or eliminated by statistically controlling for sex. In supplementary analyses, pigmentation measures appeared to be unrelated to OAEs, and data relevant to several hypotheses in the sexual orientation literature were briefly examined, including childhood gender nonconformity, X-linkage, handedness, and the tendency of homosexuality to run in families.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

The androgen receptor gene and psychological traits: are results consistent in Sweden and Australia?

Studies in Sweden and Australia have examined the relationship between number of CAG repeats in the androgen receptor gene and psychological traits - three Masculinity-Femininity (M-F) measures in Australia, and the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) in Sweden. The present study derived M-F scales from the KSP items, and scales corresponding to several KSP scales from the items of the inventories used in Australia, to permit cross-validation of the Australian results in the Swedish sample, and vice versa. The derivation of scales was facilitated by the fact that items from both inventories had been used with a large twin sample in the US. Correlation of the derived scales with androgen receptor gene CAG-repeat scores for women in the Australian and Swedish samples failed to provide clear evidence of replication of either set of original correlations in the other sample, although there were a few hints of consistency. It was concluded that if the number of CAG repeats on this gene is related to psychological traits at all, the relationship is a weak one.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The IQ paradox: resolved? Still an open question.

A generalized Dickens-Flynn (2001) model is presented and various simulations undertaken with it to give readers a better sense of the properties of such models. In particular, the inclusion of moderate degrees of persistence of intelligence and intelligence-relevant environment did not have much impact on the overall behavior of the models, although more extreme degrees of persistence did. Even moderate degrees, however, affected the internal relationships in the models. The importance of specifying the time scale and of addressing developmental aspects of the models is emphasized. It is noted that the translation of individual changes to population changes is not a simple matter in resolving the "IQ paradox" of large population gains over time in intelligence test scores.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Genetic and environmental components of adolescent adjustment and parental behavior: a multivariate analysis.

Adolescent adjustment measures may be related to each other and to the social environment in various ways. Are these relationships similar in genetic and environmental sources of covariation, or different? A multivariate behavior-genetic analysis was made of 6 adjustment and 3 treatment composites from the study Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development, using 674 same-sex adolescent sibling pairs aged 9-11. Cholesky decompositions of the total covariance matrix yielded additive and nonadditive genetic, and shared and nonshared environmental matrices. Factor analyses led to 3 factors for all but shared environment. The first 2 factors resembled Neuroticism and Extraversion factors typically found for personality; the third factor, parental monitoring and control, appeared to have different associations in different matrices.

Adolescent↗