Objective: The proposed research aims to build knowledge about family determinants of children's social and economic well being as children come into their own and make the transition to adulthood. Specific hypotheses address familial influences on educational attainment, family determinants of union- and family-formation choices of young adults, and how the quality of early family relationships shapes adult child-parent relationships. Methods: The investigators address these questions in the context of an adoption design which offers an opportunity to carry out especially powerful tests of socialization and social-psychological theories. The adoption design is 'powerful' because it allows them to test family determinants of children's outcomes independently of genetic influences. They capitalize on the resources of the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP), a long-term, longitudinal adoption study of 245 adoptive families and 245 nonadoptive families. The CAP children, their siblings, and their home environments have been assessed repeatedly since infancy using a broad, multivariate battery of social, environmental, and behavioral measures. The investigators propose to interview the probands and their siblings as they reach adulthood. Significance: The proposed research is innovative, both in the fields of behavioral genetics and in social demography, in that it brings behavioral genetic methods to bear 1) on sociological and social-demographic phenomena and 2) on the study of life-course developmental process. The marriage of behavioral genetics and social demography promises to advance understanding of how family factors influence children's life chances and to enrich socializ-ation models of life-course development.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD036773-03
Application #
6181773
Study Section
Social Sciences and Population Study Section (SSP)
Program Officer
Freund, Lisa S
Project Start
1998-08-01
Project End
2003-05-31
Budget Start
2000-06-01
Budget End
2001-05-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2000
Total Cost
$267,570
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Colorado at Boulder
Department
Genetics
Type
Other Domestic Higher Education
DUNS #
City
Boulder
State
CO
Country
United States
Zip Code
80309
Hittner, James B; Johnson, Cassandra; Tripicchio, Gina et al. (2016) Infant emotional distress, maternal restriction at a home meal, and child BMI gain through age 6years in the Colorado Adoption Project. Eat Behav 21:135-41
Huibregtse, Brooke M; Corley, Robin P; Wadsworth, Sally J et al. (2016) A Longitudinal Adoption Study of Substance Use Behavior in Adolescence. Twin Res Hum Genet 19:330-40
Corley, Robin P; Beltz, Adriene M; Wadsworth, Sally J et al. (2015) Genetic influences on pubertal development and links to behavior problems. Behav Genet 45:294-312
Beltz, Adriene M; Corley, Robin P; Bricker, Josh B et al. (2014) Modeling pubertal timing and tempo and examining links to behavior problems. Dev Psychol 50:2715-26
McClelland, Megan M; Acock, Alan C; Piccinin, Andrea et al. (2013) Relations between Preschool Attention Span-Persistence and Age 25 Educational Outcomes. Early Child Res Q 28:314-324
Rhea, Sally-Ann; Bricker, Josh B; Wadsworth, Sally J et al. (2013) The Colorado Adoption Project. Twin Res Hum Genet 16:358-65
Rhea, Sally Ann; Bricker, Josh B; Corley, Robin P et al. (2013) Design, Utility, and History of the Colorado Adoption Project: Examples Involving Adjustment Interactions. Adopt Q 16:17-39
Nilsson, Renea; Rhee, Soo Hyun; Corley, Robin P et al. (2011) Conduct Problems in Adopted and Non-adopted Adolescents and Adoption Satisfaction as a Protective Factor. Adopt Q 14:181-198
Hawke, Jesse L; Stallings, Michael C; Wadsworth, Sally J et al. (2008) DeFries-Fulker and Pearson-Aitken model-fitting analyses of reading performance data from selected and unselected twin pairs. Behav Genet 38:101-7
Bricker, J B; Stallings, M C; Corley, R P et al. (2006) Genetic and environmental influences on age at sexual initiation in the Colorado Adoption Project. Behav Genet 36:820-32

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