behavior of all children when mothers were judged insensitive, they also manifested the least externalizing behavior when mothers were highly sensitive (but see, for contradictory results, Propper et al.42). Similar results emerged in a cross-sectional investigation of sensation seeking involving 45 children who were 18–21-month-olds, with toddlers carrying the 7-repeat allele rated by parents as showing, compared with children without the 7-repeat allele, less sensation seeking behavior when parenting quality was high and more when parenting quality was low.43 Although parenting proved significantly associated with sensation seeking in the 7-repeat individuals, it did not in other children. Of importance is the fact that genotype did not predict parenting or sensation seeking, fulfilling important differential-susceptibility criteria.
