Parental representations and affective symptoms: examination for an hereditary link

Parental characteristics of low care and overprotection have been linked with several grades of depression and anxiety in studies of clinical and non-clinical groups. The possibility that such associations could be spurious ones, brought about by an hereditary influence, was examined in a non-clinical group of adoptees (n = 109). If an hereditary influence accounted for previous findings no associations between such parental characteristics and higher levels of trait depression and anxiety would be expected. Instead associations were found to be as strong as those in the earlier studies, providing further indirect support for the possibility of a causal process linking such parental representations with the expression of certain affective disturbances in adulthood.