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Personality traits in unaffected twins discordant for affective disorder
Author(s) -
Vinberg M.,
Mortensen E. L.,
Kyvik K. O.,
Kessing L. V.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2006.00909.x
Subject(s) - neuroticism , psychology , psychopathology , clinical psychology , twin study , personality , big five personality traits , comorbidity , monozygotic twin , psychiatry , developmental psychology , heritability , genetics , social psychology , biology
Objective: To examine whether a high genetic liability to develop affective disorder is associated with specific personality traits. Method: A cross‐sectional, high‐risk, case–control study. Through nation‐wide registers, healthy monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins with (high‐risk twins) and without (the control group/low‐risk twins) a co‐twin history of affective disorder were identified. Personality traits were compared for a total of 211 high‐risk and low‐risk twins. Results: In univariate analyses, the high‐risk twins had a higher level of neuroticism than the control twins ( P = 0.03). In multivariate analyses, a high genetic liability to affective disorder was not significantly associated with neuroticism but correlated to sex, minor psychopathology and recent life events. Conclusion: A high genetic liability to affective disorder showed an association with neuroticism, but the association interacts with other predictors of affective disorder such as female gender, minor psychopathology and recent adversity.