Twin studies have shown that the environmental influences most important to women, across the lifespan, are environmental factors that are uncorrelated between them or """"""""nonshared environmental"""""""" factors. To date, there have been no studies that have attempted to systematically identify what these nonshared environmental influences might be. One likely source of nonshared environmental influences on women during adulthood is their spouse. Two separate samples will be used to investigate the role of husbands in influencing the adjustment of their wives via nonshared environment. The first is comprised of 326 middle-aged twin women and their spouses. Data from the second sample, to be collected in 2000, will include a younger sample of 344 pairs of female siblings and their spouses or partners, where applicable. Univariate and multivariate genetic analyses will be employed to address the following specific aims of this proposal: 1) to assess the overall contribution of nonshared environmental factors to women's adjustment and personality, 2) to identify associations between women's adjustment and personality variables and characteristic traits of their husbands and 3) to assess the importance of husbands in contributing to non-shared environmental influences on their wife's adjustment and personality traits. Based on behavioral genetic and marital research, the following hypotheses were developed: 1) Stable characteristics of husbands will influence unstable traits of their wives via nonshared environment. 2) More stable traits of women may genetically constrain their husbands' characteristics, and 3) Relationship processes and individual attributes will mediate some of both types of partner associations. At the most basic level, it may be that husband characteristics will mediate associations between two wife constructs. It may also be that associations between husbands and wives that are due to nonshared environment are mediated by parental or marital processes.
