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Variation in mothers' arginine vasopressin receptor 1a and dopamine receptor D4 genes predicts maternal sensitivity via social cognition
- Source :
- Genes, Brain and Behavior. 16:233-240
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2016.
-
Abstract
- We examined the extent to which the arginine vasopressin receptor 1a (AVPR1a) and dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) were related to sensitive maternal behavior directly or indirectly via maternal social cognition. Participants were 207 (105 European-American and 102 African-American) mothers and their children (52% females). Sensitive maternal behavior was rated and aggregated across a series of tasks when infants were 6 months, 1 year and 2 years old. At 6 months, mothers were interviewed about their empathy, attributions about infant behavior and beliefs about crying to assess their parenting-related social cognition. Mothers with long alleles for AVPR1a and DRD4 engaged in more mother-oriented social cognition (i.e. negative attributions and beliefs about their infants' crying, s = 0.13, P < 0.05 and s = 0.16, P < 0.05, respectively), which in turn predicted less sensitive maternal behavior (s = -0.23, P < 0.01). Both indirect effects were statistically significant independent of one another and covariates [95% confidence interval (CI): -0.22, -0.03 and s = -0.03 for AVPR; 95% CI: -0.20, -0.03 and s = -0.04 for DRD4]. There were no significant direct effects of AVPR1a or DRD4 on maternal sensitivity (s = 0.02, P = .73 and s = -0.10, P = .57, respectively). The results did not vary for African-American and European-American mothers (??2 = 18.76, ?df = 16, P = 0.28). Results support the view that one mechanism by which maternal genes are associated with parental behavior is via social cognition.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
biology
Arginine vasopressin receptor 1A
Crying
media_common.quotation_subject
Empathy
Confidence interval
Developmental psychology
03 medical and health sciences
Behavioral Neuroscience
030104 developmental biology
0302 clinical medicine
Maternal sensitivity
Neurology
Social cognition
Genetics
Dopamine receptor D4
biology.protein
medicine
medicine.symptom
Attribution
Psychology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 16011848
- Volume :
- 16
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Genes, Brain and Behavior
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........2fda87dbe658ad779962caa4c4d3c2a5