The ability to separate the effects of the rearing environment from the effects of shared genes between parent and child could inform targeted intervention efforts to prevent child psychopathology. Siblings reared apart designs that include highly specified measures of both biological and adoptive rearing environments can identify discrete family processes that show associations with child behavior. They can also identify family processes that offset or exacerbate inherited risk. Due to the fact that most prior family process studies sample biological families, a clear delineation of environmental influences free from the confounding of genetic influences is typically not possible without a genetically-sensitive design such as this. The specific family processes identified in siblings reared apart designs can therefore provide new insights into malleable aspects of the environment that could be targeted in prevention studies.
