The present study adds to the literature by demonstrating that parental genetic predispositions toward externalizing influence adolescent externalizing behavior not only through direct genetic transmission but also via genetic nurturance. Our findings illustrate that parental externalizing polygenic scores uniquely predicted their adolescent’s externalizing behavior beyond the variance explained by children’s own externalizing polygenic scores. In addition, parental externalizing psychopathology partly explained the relationship between parental externalizing polygenic score and adolescent externalizing behavior. This supports the idea that parental externalizing psychopathology represents both genetic and environmental risk. Our results also indicate associations between adolescent genotype and self-reported parenting, providing some evidence for evocative gene-environment correlation. Results of the present study underscore the complex interplay between genes and environments in contributing to intergenerational risk for externalizing behavior. Genetic and environmental influences should be considered together to understand parent and child behavior in the development of psychopathology.
