Purpose

Studies have shown that disadvantaged neighborhoods are associated with higher levels of crime and delinquent behaviors. Existing explanations do not adequately address how individuals select neighborhood. Thus, the current study employed a genetically-informed design to test whether living in a disadvantaged neighborhood might be partly explained by individual characteristics, including self-control and cognitive ability.

Method

A sibling subsample of N = 1573 Add Health siblings living away from their parents at Wave 4 was used in twin analyses to assess genetic and environmental effects on neighborhood disadvantage. To evaluate which individual-level variables might longitudinally predict neighborhood disadvantage, a sample of N = 12,405 individuals was used.

Results

Findings provided evidence of significant heritability (32%) of neighborhood disadvantage. In addition, a significant negative effect by adolescent cognitive ability on neighborhood disadvantage 14 years later was observed (β = −0.04, p = .002). Follow-up analyses showed a genetic effect on the association between cognitive ability and neighborhood disadvantage.

Conclusions

Study findings indicate substantial heritability of neighborhood disadvantage, showing that individuals themselves might potentially contribute to a self-selection process that explains which neighborhoods they occupy as adults.

中文翻译：

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了解邻里劣势：行为遗传分析

目的

研究表明，处境不利的社区与较高的犯罪率和犯罪行为有关。现有的解释不足以解决个人如何选择邻居。因此，当前的研究采用了遗传信息设计来测试生活在弱势社区中的生活是否可以部分由包括自我控制和认知能力在内的个体特征来解释。

方法

 在第4浪中，使用N = 1573 Add远离父母的健康兄弟姐妹的兄弟姐妹子样本进行双胞胎分析，以评估遗传和环境对邻居不利条件的影响。为了评估哪些个人水平变量可以纵向预测邻里不利，我们使用了N  = 12,405个人的样本。

结果

研究结果提供了邻里劣势的显着遗传性（32％）的证据。此外，观察到14年后青少年认知能力对邻里不利的显着负面影响（β= -0.04，p  = .002）。后续分析显示遗传效应对认知能力和邻里劣势之间的关联。

结论

研究结果表明，邻里劣势的遗传性很强，表明个体本身可能对自我选择过程做出了潜在的贡献，这一过程说明了他们成年后所居住的邻里。