PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Twin studies suggest that both genes and environments influence the emergence and development of individual differences in self-esteem. However, different lines of research have emphasized either the role of genes or of environmental influences in shaping self-esteem, and the pathways through which genes and environments exert their influence on self-esteem remain largely unclear. In this study, we used nationally representative data from over 2000 German twin families and a nuclear twin family design (NTFD) to further our understanding of the genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in self-esteem. Compared with classical twin designs, NTFDs allow for finer-grained descriptions of the genetic and environmental influences on phenotypic variation, produce less biased estimates of those effects, and provide more information about different environmental influences and gene-environment correlation that contribute to siblings' similarity. Our NTFD results suggested that additive and non-additive genetic influences contributed to individual differences in self-esteem as well as environmental influences that are both shared and not shared by twins. The shared environmental component mostly reflected non-parental influences. These findings highlight the increased sensitivity afforded by NTFDs but also remaining limitations that need to be addressed by future behavioural genetic work on the sources of self-esteem. Copyright (c) 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology