Effects of Divorce on Dutch Boys’ and Girls’ Externalizing Behavior in GXE Perspective: Diathesis Stress or Differential Susceptibility?

Effects of divorce on children’s behavioral development have proven to be quite varied across studies and most developmental and family scholars today appreciate the great heterogeneity in divorce effects. Thus, this inquiry sought to determine whether select dopaminergic genes previously associated with externalizing behavior and/or found to moderate diverse environmental effects (DRD2, DRD4, COMT) might moderate divorce effects on adolescent self-reported externalizing problems; and, if so, whether evidence of gene-environment (GXE) interaction would prove consistent with diathesis-stress or differential-susceptibility models of environmental action. Data from the first and third wave of the Dutch TRacking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS, n = 1,134) revealed some evidence of GXE interaction reflecting diathesis-stress but not differential susceptibility. Intriguingly, some evidence pointed to “vantage sensitivity”—benefits accruing to those with a specific genotype when their parents remained together, the exact opposite of diathesis-stress.