GENETIC INFLUENCE ON FAMILY ENVIRONMENT - THE ROLE OF PERSONALITY

The relation between genetic influence on personality (extraversion and neuroticism) and genetic influence on family environment measures was examined. More than 400 pairs of twins were assessed at the average age of 59 years. Trivariate quantitative genetic model-fitting analyses indicated that genetic influence on a Relationship dimension and a Personal Growth dimension of the environmental measure was shared with genetic effects on personality. However, the majority of genetic variance was unique to these measures. The genetic influence on a System Maintenance dimension was largely independent of genetic variance on personality. Taken together, these results suggest that more remains to be explained in the puzzle of genetic influence on environmental measures.