Common Genetic but Specific Environmental Influences for Aggressive and Deceitful Behaviors in Preadolescent Males Edward D. Barker & Henrik Larsson & Essi Viding & Barbara Maughan & Fruhling Rijsdijk & Nathalie Fontaine & Robert Plomin # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Although both aggressive (AGG) and deceitful behaviors (DEC) are symptoms of childhood conduct problems, few studies have examined common vs. specific etiological influences. Early intervention is encouraged for conduct problems and findings from genetically informa- tive studies can suggest whether interventions should focus on conduct problems in general or groupings of conduct problems more specifically. Twin model-fitting analyses were conducted on same and different teacher ratings of AGG and DEC for 872 9-year old male twin pairs. Common genetic influences were found to underlie the susceptibility for both AGG and DEC. The same teacher ratings resulted in somewhat higher heritability estimates than different teacher ratings. Results also indicated stronger environmental effects for DEC as compared with AGG, with a significant shared environmental component for same teachers and a substantial non-shared environ- mental component for different teachers. Our data suggest that AGG and DEC share risk genes and environmental factors may differentiate these two types of conduct problems. Characterizing these specific environmental factors may be useful when developing interventions. Keywords Genes . Environment . Childhood . Aggression . Deceptive behaviors Abbreviations ASB Antisocial behavior AGG aggression DEC deceptive behaviors ICC intraclass correlation CTCTC cross-twin cross-trait correlation Introduction Chronic antisocial behavior (ASB) is costly to individuals, families, schools, communities and society. Studies have documented the staggering financial burden of persistent ASB to their victims (psychological and health burdens) and society (costs for detainment, general health, and in patient mental health costs) (Foster et al. 2005). Not surprisingly, the roles of genetic and environmental J Psychopathol Behav Assess DOI 10.1007/s10862-009-9132-6 E. D. Barker (*) Department of Psychology, Center for the Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA e-mail: ted.barker@ua.edu E. D. Barker : E. Viding : B. Maughan : F. Rijsdijk : R. Plomin Institute of Psychiatry, King’ s College London, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, London, UK H. Larsson Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden E. Viding : N. Fontaine Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK N. Fontaine Department of Psychology, Université Laval, Québec City, Canada