Results of the present study are consistent with prior research suggesting that most of the moderate association between corporal punishment and conduct problems in a British sample is due to common genetic factors (Jaffee et al. 2004a). In contrast, no evidence was found for an effect of children’s genetic vulnerability on physical maltreatment in the British study. The fact that our results are closer to Jaffee et al.’s results regarding corporal punishment than physical maltreatment are not surprising; Jaffee et al. used a more severe operational definition of physical maltreatment (i.e., enough to cause injury), whereas the present study’s physical maltreatment measure included relatively mild maltreatment and corporal punishment. Also, Jaffee et al. used parent report, which tends to produce lower estimates of A and E and higher estimates of C compared to the child report method used in the present study (Achenbach et al. 1987; Hewitt et al. 1992; Wade and Kendler 2000).
