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Fears and Fearfulness in Children and Adolescents: a Genetic Analysis of Twin Data
Author(s) -
Stevenson Jim,
Batten Nicki,
Cherner Mariana
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1992.tb00919.x
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , twin study , genetics , heritability , biology
A sample of 175 same sex dizygotic pairs and 144 monozygotic twin pairs aged between 8:00 and 18:00 completed the Fear Survey Schedule for Children–Revised. The heritabilities were significant for Fear of the Unknown ( h 2 = 0.46, p < 0.001), Fear of Injury and Small Animals ( h 2 = 0.46, p < 0.001), Fear of Danger ( h 2 = 0.34, p < 0.001) and for Total Fear Score ( h 2 = 0.29, p < 0.001). Multiple regression was used to estimate the heritability of extreme fearfulness ( h 2 ). For each of the fear factors the values of h 2 were of similar magnitude to those of h 2 suggesting that there is no evidence of greater genetic influences at more extreme levels of fearfulness.