Heritability of MMPI-2 Scales in the UCSF Family Alcoholism Study

ABSTRACT

The current study evaluated the heritability of personality traits and psychopathology symptoms assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2nd Edition (MMPI-2) in a family-based sample selected for alcohol dependence. Participants included 950 probands and 1,204 first-degree relatives recruited for the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Family Alcoholism Study. Heritability estimates for MMPI-2 scales ranged from .25 to .49. When alcohol dependence was used as a covariate, heritability estimates remained significant but generally declined. However, when the MMPI-2 scales were used as covariates to estimate the heritability of alcohol dependence, the scales measuring antisocial behavior, depressive symptoms, and addictive behavior led to moderate increases in the heritability of alcohol dependence. This suggests that the scales may explain some of the non-genetic variance in the alcohol dependence diagnosis in this population when used as covariates, and thus may serve to produce a more homogeneous and heritable alcohol-dependence phenotype.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol-related disorders
• behavioral genetics
• heredity
• personality
• comorbidity

Supported by funds from the State of California for medical research on alcohol and substance abuse through the University of California at San Francisco. Additional support was provided by the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center to KCW, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants T32 AA007573 (PI: Dr. Fulton Crews) to IRG and AA010201 and U54 RR0250204 to CLE. The authors thank James Butcher for allowing access to the MMPI-2 substance dependence dataset.

Notes

^a Age was included as a covariate.

^b Significant at p < .001.

^c Significant at p < .05.

^d Gender was included as a covariate.

^a MMPI-2 scale means were constrained to the population mean (i.e., M = 50) to correct for potential ascertainment bias.

^b Alcohol Dependence Diagnosis represented a significant covariate for all scales except Si.

^c Age was included as a covariate.

^d Gender was included as a covariate.

^a Normative sample described by Butcher et al.¹ and inpatient sample described by McKenna and Butcher, ⁸³ normative sample: mean = 50.0, standard deviation = 10.0.

^b Significant at P < .001.

^c Significant at P < .01.

^d Significant at P < .05.

^a Data was not available from NESARC, thus data from population-based twin studies were used. ^{85 , 86}