The papers in this special issue provide illustrations of places where developmental psychologists and prevention scientists can make substantive contributions to the study of genetic predispositions, as well as areas that could benefit from closer collaborations between prevention scientists and geneticists. In general, psychologists tend to do an excellent job of grounding their studies in theory, and prevention science is no exception. As genetic information has been incorporated into prevention science, this method of grounding the research in theory has transferred to the selection of particular genes, which are generally included for study based on an underlying biological rationale. For example, several papers in this issue focus on the oxytocin receptor gene (Glenn et al., 2017); (Cleveland et al., 2017); (Beach et al., 2016), based on previous studies suggesting a role in bonding and social behavior, which may support the hypothesis that this gene could be involved in differential response to prevention, which often involves various interpersonal components.
