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Frequency of church attendance in Australia and the United States: models of family resemblance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

KM Kirk ,
HH Maes ,
MC Neale ,
AC Heath ,
NG Martin  and
LJ Eaves
KM Kirk*
Affiliation:
Queensland Institute of Medical Research and Joint Genetics Program, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. kathE@qimr.edu.au
HH Maes
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavior Genetics, Richmond.
MC Neale
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavior Genetics, Richmond.
AC Heath
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, USA.
NG Martin
Affiliation:
Queensland Institute of Medical Research and Joint Genetics Program, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
LJ Eaves
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavior Genetics, Richmond.
*
*Correspondence: Dr KM Kirk, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Post Office, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Brisbane QLD 4029, Queensland, Australia. Tel: + 61 7 3362 0272; Fax: + 61 7 3362 0101;

Abstract

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Data on frequency of church attendance have been obtained from separate cohorts of twins and their families from the USA and Australia (29 063 and 20 714 individuals from 5670 and 5615 families, respectively). The United States sample displayed considerably higher frequency of attendance at church services. Sources of family resemblance for this trait also differed between the Australian and US data, but both indicated significant additive genetic and shared environment effects on church attendance, with minor contributions from twin environment, assortative mating and parent–offspring environmental transmission. Principal differences between the populations were in greater maternal environmental effects in the US sample, as opposed to paternal effects in the Australian sample, and smaller shared environment effects observed for both women and men in the US cohort.

Keywords

religionchurch attendanceextended kinship modeltwinscultural inheritanceassortative matingtwin environment
Type
Articles
Information
Twin Research and Human Genetics , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1999 , pp. 99 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999