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The Limits of Child Effects: Evidence for
Genetically Mediated Child Effects on Corporal
Punishment but Not on Physical...
Article in Developmental Psychology · November 2004
DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.40.6.1047 · Source: PubMed
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The Limits of Child Effects: Evidence for Genetically Mediated Child
Effects on Corporal Punishment but Not on Physical Maltreatment
Sara R. Jaffee
University of Pennsylvania and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s
College London
Avshalom Caspi and Terrie E. Moffitt
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London and University
of Wisconsin—Madison
Monica Polo-Tomas
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London
Thomas S. Price
Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford University
Alan Taylor
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London
Research on child effects has demonstrated that children’s difficult and coercive behavior provokes harsh
discipline from adults. Using a genetically sensitive design, the authors tested the limits of child effects
on adult behavior that ranged from the normative (corporal punishment) to the nonnormative (physical
maltreatment). The sample was a 1994–1995 nationally representative birth cohort of 1,116 twins and
their families who participated in the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Study. Results showed that
environmental factors accounted for most of the variation in corporal punishment and physical maltreat-
ment. However, corporal punishment was genetically mediated in part, and the genetic factors that
influenced corporal punishment were largely the same as those that influenced children’s antisocial
behavior, suggesting a child effect. The authors conclude that risk factors for maltreatment are less likely
to reside within the child and more likely to reside in characteristics that differ between families.
For much of the last century, research on parent disciplinary
practices has described how parents influence their children’s
development but has failed to consider how children’s behavior
might simultaneously influence the nature of their interactions
with parents. Only in the past 30 years have researchers begun to
explore the bidirectional nature of parent–child relations and con-
cluded that much of what parents do is a response to children’s
behavior (e.g., Anderson, Lytton, & Romney, 1986; Bell & Chap-
man, 1986; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; O’Connor, 2002; Patterson,
Reid, & Dishion, 1992). More recently still, some behavioral
geneticists have questioned whether parents have any influence on
their children’s behavior beyond that which is transmitted genet-
ically (Harris, 1998; Rowe, 1994). This article asks the following