Child Development

Cover image for Vol. 84 Issue 1

Edited By: Jeffrey J. Lockman

Impact Factor: 4.718

ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking: 2011: 1/51 (Psychology Educational); 4/68 (Psychology Developmental)

Online ISSN: 1467-8624

Associated Title(s): Child Development PerspectivesMonographs of the Society for Research in Child Development




http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12146732


Based on an evolutionary theory of socialization, Belsky and colleagues proposed that girls exposed to a stress- ful environment, especially when due to father absence in the first 7 years of life, showed an early onset of pu- berty, precocious sexuality, and unstable relationships as adults. The authors of this article examined an alter- native explanation that a variant X-linked androgen receptor (AR) gene, predisposing the father to behaviors that include family abandonment, may be passed to their daughters causing early puberty, precocious sexual- ity, and behavior problems. The results of a study of 121 White males and 164 White females showed a signifi- cant association of the short alleles of the GGC repeat polymorphism of the AR gene with a range of measures of aggression and impulsivity, increased number of sexual partners, sexual compulsivity, and lifetime number of sex partners in males; and paternal divorce, father absence, and early age of menarche in females. These findings support a genetic explanation of the Belsky psychosocial evolutionary hypothesis regarding the asso- ciation of fathers' absence and parental stress with early age of onset of menarche and early sexual activity in their daughters. A genetic explanation of the father absence effect is proposed in which fathers carrying the AR alleles are more likely to abandon a marriage (father absence) and pass those alleles to their daughters in whom they produce an earlier age of menarche and behavioral problems.


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