has been some evidence that genetic factors influence a person’s tendency to affiliate with deviant peers (Manke et al., 1995; Rowe and Osgood, 1984); possibly through selection or attraction of delinquent peers, and that the same genetic factors may also contribute to one’s own behavior (Rowe and Osgood, 1984). This is an example of active and evocative rGE. In reality, it is likely that causation, selection, and attraction all contribute to the correlation between affiliations with delinquent peers and substance use problems. We have previously demonstrated that affiliation with peers perceived to be delinquent moderates the genetic variance for conduct problems in adolescents, and both absolute genetic variance and heritability were greater at higher levels of exposure to delinquent peers (Button et al., 2007a). However, this is the first study to examine the mediating role of perceived peer delinquency on generalized substance dependence vulnerability.
