Further work is needed to clarify what aspects of covert delinquent behavior are especially susceptible to shared environmental influences. Perhaps some such behaviors (eg, destroying property, setting fires, and stealing) reflect antisocial activities in which young male twins are particularly likely to collude with co-twins, regard less of zygosity. The selective positive association of this factor with the trait of novelty seeking, coupled with its positive relations with antisocial personality disorder symptoms, alcohol/drug dependence, and (somewhat counterintuitively) higher educational attainment, could reflect an “open”/experience-seeking disposition conducive to experimentation. Alternatively, it could be that certain adverse environments contribute generally to behaviors of this type by fostering isolation and hostile feelings. The observed negative association of the covert delinquency factor with extraversion appears consistent with this latter possibility, although its null associations with neuroticism and GAD do not.
