Social relationships, stressful life events, and self-reported physical health: Genetic and environmental influences

Abstract

This study investigates how the associations between self-reported health, stressful life events, and social relationships are mediated by genetic and environmental influences and how much of the variance in health is in common with variation in these psychosocial factors. The analyses are based on questionnaire data from 576 pairs of twins reared apart and twins reared together. The data revealed that for men environmental influences were solely important for variation in the psychosocial measures and were the primary mediators of the relationship with health. For women, on the other hand, a substantial portion of the variance in the psychosocial factors was due to genetic influences and these influences also contributed to the bulk of the correlations with health. The gender differences for the relationships and their mediation indicate that what should be regarded as a psychosocial factor of importance for health might differ between genders.