Genetic determinants of individual differences in coping styles

Abstract

Genetic analyses of data from 612 adult Polish twin pairs demonstrated reasonable genetic contribution to variation in scores of Task-Oriented, Emotion-Oriented, Social Diversion and Distraction scales on Endler and Parker's Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). Structural equation models were fitted to estimate heritability and showed the range to which individual differences in coping are influenced by genetic and environmental factors. The model was extended, using a Cholesky (triangular) decomposition, to examine genetic and environmental covariance. The environmental correlations were generally low (maximum r=.24), whereas some of the genetic correlations were considerably higher (maximum r=.52).

Keywords:

• Coping style
• stress
• heritability
• behavioural genetics

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant (PBZ-KBN 001/HO1) from the Polish Committee for Scientific Research, Jan Strelau, principal investigator.

Notes

It was not possible to estimate the model, which contained both dominance and additive genetic variance and common environmental variance, as these models were not statistically identified.