the role of parent-to-child hostility as an environmental risk mechanism for the transmission of antisocial behavior. In comparison, for depression, path analyses indicated a direct association between parent depression and child depression for genetically related mothers and fathers that was partially mediated by parent-to-child hostility for fathers and fully mediated for mothers; however, there was no evidence of mediation for genetically unrelated mothers or fathers (and an absence of a direct path between father depression and child depression in genetically unrelated dyads). This lack of association between parent-to-child hostility and child depression for genetically unrelated dyads, but the presence of this association for genetically related dyads, suggests the likely role of shared genes in influencing the link between parental hostility and the child’s depressive symptoms. Taken together, the pattern of results in this study suggests that the role of genes may be more important in the intergenerational transmission of depression than antisocial behavior, and that parent-to-child hostility is an important environmental mechanism that could be targeted in intervention studies to help mitigate risk.
