Familial Clustering of Trends in Aggression

Camiel M. van der Laan; Steve G. A. van de Weijer; Michel G. Nivard; Dorret I. Boomsma

doi:10.1007/s10940-021-09523-8

Familial Clustering of Trends in Aggression

Camiel M. van der Laan, Steve G. A. van de Weijer, Michel G. Nivard, Dorret I. Boomsma

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Objectives
Examine trends in aggressive behavior from 1991 to 2015, investigate whether these trends apply equally to all individuals, and explore the extent to which differences in trends over time cluster within families.

Methods
Our study included 69,465 measures from 40,400 individuals, from 15,437 Dutch families. Aggression was measured between 1 and 4 times by self-report. We fitted a mixed effects model, modeling the effect of time, age, and gender on aggression, and considering the three levels of nesting in the data, i.e. repeated measures, individuals, and families. To investigate if individual differences in trends in aggression over time cluster within families, variance in aggression and in time and age effects was partitioned into within- and between family variance components.

Results
We found a steady decline in aggression over time, between 1991 and 2015, as well as over the life course. Across time and age, women had slightly higher levels of aggression than men. There was clear evidence for clustering within, and variation between families, both in overall aggression levels and in time effects.

Conclusions
We confirm earlier findings of a decline in aggression over the past decades. Not all individuals follow the downward trend over time for aggression to the same extent. Trends over time cluster within families, demonstrating that family factors are not only important to explain variation in aggression levels, but also in understanding differences between individuals in time trends.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-19
Number of pages	19
Journal	Journal of Quantitative Criminology
Volume	39
Issue number	1
Early online date	11 Aug 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-021-09523-8
Publication status	Published - Mar 2023

Funding

We thank all the twin families registered with the Netherlands Twin Register for their participation. CvdL was supported by the Amsterdam Law and Behavior Institute (A-LAB; Vrije Universtiteit, Amsterdam). SvdW was supported by NWO-Grant 451-16-014. Data collection was made possible by multiple grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO): 575-25-006, 480-04-004, 904-61-090, 904-61-193, 400-05-717, 311-60008, SPI 56-464-14192 and the Avera Institute for Human Genetics. We gratefully acknowledge Grant NWO 480-15-001/674: Netherlands Twin Registry Repository: researching the interplay between genome and environment. M.G.N. is supported by ZonMw grant: ‘Genetics as a research tool: a natural experiment to elucidate the causal effects of social mobility on health’ (pnr: 531003014) and ZonMw project: ‘Can sex- and gender-specific gene expression and epigenetics explain sex-differences in disease prevalence and etiology?’ (pnr: 849200011). We thank all the twin families registered with the Netherlands Twin Register for their participation. CvdL was supported by the Amsterdam Law and Behavior Institute (A-LAB; Vrije Universtiteit, Amsterdam). SvdW was supported by NWO-Grant 451-16-014. Data collection was made possible by multiple grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO): 575-25-006, 480-04-004, 904-61-090, 904-61-193, 400-05-717, 311-60008, SPI 56-464-14192 and the Avera Institute for Human Genetics. We gratefully acknowledge Grant NWO 480-15-001/674: Netherlands Twin Registry Repository: researching the interplay between genome and environment. M.G.N. is supported by ZonMw grant: ‘Genetics as a research tool: a natural experiment to elucidate the causal effects of social mobility on health’ (pnr: 531003014) and ZonMw project: ‘Can sex- and gender-specific gene expression and epigenetics explain sex-differences in disease prevalence and etiology?’ (pnr: 849200011).

Funders	Funder number
NWO-Grant	451-16-014
ZonMw	531003014, 849200011
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	311-60008, 480-04-004, 904-61-090, 400-05-717, 575-25-006, 904-61-193, SPI 56-464-14192
Avera Institute for Human Genetics	NWO 480-15-001/674

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title = "Familial Clustering of Trends in Aggression",

abstract = "Objectives Examine trends in aggressive behavior from 1991 to 2015, investigate whether these trends apply equally to all individuals, and explore the extent to which differences in trends over time cluster within families. Methods Our study included 69,465 measures from 40,400 individuals, from 15,437 Dutch families. Aggression was measured between 1 and 4 times by self-report. We fitted a mixed effects model, modeling the effect of time, age, and gender on aggression, and considering the three levels of nesting in the data, i.e. repeated measures, individuals, and families. To investigate if individual differences in trends in aggression over time cluster within families, variance in aggression and in time and age effects was partitioned into within- and between family variance components. Results We found a steady decline in aggression over time, between 1991 and 2015, as well as over the life course. Across time and age, women had slightly higher levels of aggression than men. There was clear evidence for clustering within, and variation between families, both in overall aggression levels and in time effects. Conclusions We confirm earlier findings of a decline in aggression over the past decades. Not all individuals follow the downward trend over time for aggression to the same extent. Trends over time cluster within families, demonstrating that family factors are not only important to explain variation in aggression levels, but also in understanding differences between individuals in time trends.",

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AU - Boomsma, Dorret I.

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Familial Clustering of Trends in Aggression

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