Non-transmitted parental polygenic scores predict offspring educational attainment, evidencing genetic nurturing effects in adults¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In genetic-nurturing designs splitting parental alleles into transmitted and non-transmitted halves, both sets of parental PGS predicted adult offspring's educational attainment; prediction by non-transmitted alleles indicates an environmental effect acting through rearing behaviors. → Hart 2021 q2 i? For cognitive traits, the predictive power of a PGS within families was about 50% lower than across unrelated individuals, suggesting passive gene–environment correlations contribute to children's cognitive development. → Hart 2021 (2)

Evidence¶

Hart 2021¶

Hart, S. A., Little, C. & van Bergen, E. (2021). Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions. npj Science of Learning 6:2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00079-z

q2 · i? · review · r2

The article reports this published genetic-nurturing design study, in which parental genotypes were split into transmitted and non-transmitted halves. "both sets of parent PGS predicted adult offspring 's educational attainment"; Kong et al. coined the non-transmitted effect "genetic nurturing". No effect size is printed.

"what the researchers found was both sets of parent PGS predicted adult offspring 's educational attainment. The predictive value of the transmitted PGS was unsurprising, as this captures directly transmitted genetic effects."

Hart 2021 (2)¶

Hart, S. A., Little, C. & van Bergen, E. (2021). Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions. npj Science of Learning 6:2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00079-z

q2 · i? · review · r2

The article reports this published within- versus between-family PGS comparison; attenuation "about 50% lower" within families suggests passive gene–environment correlations contribute to children's cognitive development. No effect size beyond the 50% attenuation is printed.

"Lee et al. 35 and Selzam et al. 29 found that for cognitive traits, the predictive power of a PGS within a family was about 50% lower than across unrelated individuals."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Associations between the rearing environment and children's outcomes can be partly or fully due to genetic confounding rather than causal environmental transmission — related
• Education and cognitive-ability polygenic scores significantly predict verbal ability, with the education PGS far more robust — related
• Including SES and offspring genome in the same model reduces the education PGS effect by more than 20% and SES effects by about 10–15%, implying 20–30% of parental SES effects are genomic — related
• A polygenic score for educational attainment positively predicts reading and speaking skills in early childhood, later scholastic achievement, and adult economic security — related
• A positive G×E interaction between the education PGS and SES indicates a favorable SES environment enhances the effect of offspring genome — related
• For childhood outcomes (academic achievement, ADHD symptoms), genetic-nurturing designs found only direct genetic effects and no genetic nurturing — a narrower finding that bears on this claim