The Relationship between Self-Control in Adolescence and Social Consequences in Adulthood: Assessing the Influence of Genetic Confounds

Purpose

Assess the relationship between levels of self-control in adolescence and a variety of later-life outcomes and evaluate the confounding effects of genetic factors.

Methods

The current study employed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and examined whether levels of self-control in adolescence are related to economic, educational, employment, health, relationship and family, and behavioral outcomes in adulthood using DeFries-Fulker regression-based analyses.

Results

Analyses employing non-genetically sensitive methods indicated robust associations between self-control and various social consequences. After estimating genetically-sensitive analyses, however, many associations were no longer significant. Those associations which remained significant were in the reversed direction relative to the non-genetically sensitive models. Additionally, further analyses indicated that some of the remaining significant associations were influenced by nonshared genetic effects.

Conclusions

The findings indicate that even after controlling for the effect of genetic factors, levels of self-control are associated with differences in a variety of social outcomes. However, given the reduction in the number of significant associations and reversal of associations in the genetically sensitive models, analyses of the social consequences of low self-control which do not account for the effect of genetic factors are likely misspecified.