The present study was designed to examine the interactive effects of an early adverse parental environment and the OXTR rs2254298 polymorphism in predicting poor psychosocial outcomes. Early adverse environment was operationalized based on mothers' history of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Compared to nondepressed mothers, depressed mothers report more negative and critical perceptions of their children and exhibit more hostility and intrusive behaviors towards their offspring (see Lovejoy et al., 2000, for a review). Maternal depression significantly increases the risk that offspring will develop psychiatric disorders (see Hammen, 2009, for a review). Thus, participants in the present study were adolescent girls whose mothers either had a history of recurrent depression during their daughters' lifetime (high early adversity) or had no current or past psychopathology (low early adversity). Psychosocial outcomes were operationalized as symptoms of depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety have been found to be associated with the OXTR rs2254298 polymorphism in adults (Costa et al., 2009). We hypothesized that exposure to high early adversity would interact with the OXTR rs2254298 polymorphism to predict symptom levels of girls' depression and anxiety.
