Although the effects of children’s genetic vulnerabilities on the experience of maltreatment in this sample appear to be small (Schulz-Heik et al. 2009), the present study suggests that a relatively large portion of the small but statistically significant phenotypic correlation between maltreatment and conduct problems may be due to non-passive gene environment correlation. This suggests that a significant portion of the correlation between maltreatment and conduct problems may not be due to maltreatment causing conduct problems, but rather to parents responding to children’s genetically-influenced behaviors related to conduct problems by maltreating them.
