Adolescent Twins' Social/Interpersonal Pleasure and other Positive Affect Ratings: A Genetic Inquiry

These data include demographic and self-report data for 177 MZ and 136 same sex DZ adolescent twins (Mean age = 16.4 ± .97 years). The sample was part of the Wisconsin Twin Project. The main questionnaire of interest was the adolescent version of the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS-A), administered along with other self-report scales tapping aspects of positive affect (PA). The other scales included in the analyses included the Behavioral Activation Scale (BAS), Psychological Well-Being Scale, and revised Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (EATQR). We expected associations between measures of PA and social/interpersonal pleasure, as measured by the ACIPS-A.

Structural equation modeling estimated the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the phenotypic variance in each of the measures. Followup bivariate analyses parsed the genetic and environmental contributions to the phenotypic covariances between the ACIPS-A and each of the other measures of PA.

Main findings include the following: 1) moderate heritability for the ACIPS-A scale scores; 2) models specifying additive genetic and unique environmental effects (AE models) were the most parsimonious models for each of the measures; and 3) although several measures showed moderate positive associations with each other, bivariate biometric analyses indicated that the ACIPS-A also captures unique heritable variation.