The distinction between genetic influences on the covariance (or bivariate heritability) and genetic correlations in bivariate twin models is often not well-understood or only one is reported while the results show distinctive information about the relation between traits. We applied bivariate twin models in a large sample of adolescent twins, to disentangle the association between well-being (WB) and four complex traits (optimism, anxious-depressed symptoms (AD), aggressive behaviour (AGG), and educational achievement (EA)). Optimism and AD showed respectively a strong positive and negative phenotypic correlation with WB, the negative correlation of WB and AGG is lower and the correlation with EA is nearly zero. All four traits showed a large genetic contribution to the covariance with well-being. The genetic correlations of well-being with optimism and AD are strong and smaller for AGG and EA. We used the results of the models to explain what information is retrieved based on the bivariate heritability versus the genetic correlations and the (clinical) implications.

在双变量双胞胎模型中，遗传对协方差（或双变量遗传力）和遗传相关性的影响之间的区别通常不是很清楚，或者只报告了一个，而结果显示了关于性状之间关系的独特信息。我们在大量青春期双胞胎样本中应用了双变量双胞胎模型，以解开幸福感 (WB) 与四个复杂特征（乐观、焦虑抑郁症状 (AD)、攻击行为 (AGG) 和教育成就 (EA) 之间的关联） ))。乐观和AD分别与WB呈强正负相关，WB和AGG的负相关较低，与EA的相关几乎为零。所有四个性状都显示出对幸福感协方差的巨大遗传贡献。对于 AGG 和 EA，幸福感与乐观主义和 AD 的遗传相关性很强且较小。我们使用模型的结果来解释基于双变量遗传力与遗传相关性和（临床）含义检索到的信息。