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In light of work by quantitative geneticists, the authors reconsider the interaction of heredity and environment in the development of individual differences during infancy and early childhood. Quantitative genetics offers a general theory of the development of individual differences that suggests novel concepts and research strategies: the idea that genetic influences operate in age-to-age change as well as in continuity, for example. Quantitative genetics also provides powerful methods to address questions of change and continuity which are helpfully introduced in this study. Longitudinal quantitative genetic research is essential to the understanding of developmental change and continuity. The largest and longes longitudinal adoption study is the Colorado Adoption Project, which has generated much of the rich data on the progress from infancy to early childhood on which the authors draw throughout the book.
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Nature and nurture during infancy and early childhood Nature and nurture during infancy and early childhood ROBERT PLOMIN The Pennsylvania State University JOHN C. D E F R I E S University of Colorado DAVID W. FULKER University of Colorado The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge New York New Rochelle Melbourne Sydney CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521343701 © Cambridge University Press 1988 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1988 This digitally printed first paperback version 2006 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Plomin, Robert, 1948Nature and nurture during infancy and early childhood. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Nature and nurture. 2. Behavior genetics. 3. Difference (Psychology) 4. Child psychology. I. DeFries, J. C, 1934- . II. Fulker, David W. III. Title. [DNLM: 1. Environment. 2. Genetics, Behavioral - in infancy & childhood. QH 457 P729n] BF701.P55 1988 155.4'22 87-38222 ISBN-13 978-0-521-34370-1 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-34370-4 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-03424-1 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-03424-8 paperback TO THE MEMORY OF RONALD S. WILSON Contents Preface Acknowledgments page ix xii 1 Introduction 1 2 Individual differences and group differences 6 3 Quantitative genetics as the basis for a general theory of individual differences 24 4 The Colorado Adoption Project 37 5 Transitions and changes: description and prediction 77 6 Transitions and changes: genetic and environmental etiologies 111 7 Introduction to model 157 8 Fitting sibling and parent-offspring models in the Colorado Adoption Project 179 Interactions 224 9 fitting 10 Genotype-environment correlation 253 11 Genetics and measures of the family environment: the nature of nurture 271 12 Conclusions 314 References Author index Subject index 327 339 343 vn Preface Beha