Adoption Study, 1975-1982

The purpose of the Iowa Children and Family Services and Lutheran Social Services projects was to assess environmental and genetic influences on subsequent antisocial and/or substance abuse among adoptees and matched controls. The 246 participating families in the study consisted of 136 males and 110 females. The comparative research design resulted in a final sample of 143 participants within the experimental condition, and 103 participants who served as members of the demographically-matched control group. The Lutheran Social Services projects consisted of 214 participating families of which 118 participants (60 males and 58 females) were included in the Alcoholism project, and 96 participants (66 males and 30 females) were included in the project on antisocial behavior. Roughly half of the participants in each project were adoptee control participants matched to the target adoptee participants. All samples were predominantly White. Data were collected in 1975 and included data on adoptee participants with biological family histories of psychiatric dysfunction, the adoptive family, and on the adoptees' matched adoptee controls. Data were collected for the Lutheran Social Services Antisocial project during 1979 and 1980, and data for the Lutheran Social Services Alcoholic project were collected during1981 and 1982. Each project gathered data on adoptee participants with biological family histories of antisocial and alcohol related problems respectively, the adoptive family, and on participants' matched adoptee controls. Variables assessed in both studies included genetic factors (e.g., adoptee physical development, and health), and environmental factors in the adoptive home (e.g., alcohol, antisocial and other behavior problems, death and divorce of adoptive parent(s)). The Murray Archive has numeric file data from both studies.