Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
  • Home
Article
  • Cited by 10

  • Access
  • Open access

umx: Twin and Path-Based Structural Equation Modeling in R

  • Timothy C. Bates (a1), Hermine Maes (a2) and Michael C. Neale (a2)

Abstract

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is an important research tool, both for path-based model specification (common in the social sciences) and also for matrix-based models (in heavy use in behavior genetics). We developed umx to give more immediate access, relatively concise syntax and helpful defaults for users in these two broad disciplines. umx supports development, modification and comparison of models, as well as both graphical and tabular outputs. The second major focus of umx, behavior genetic models, is supported via functions implementing standard multigroup twin models. These functions support raw and covariance data, including joint ordinal data, and give solutions for ACE models, including support for covariates, common- and independent-pathway models, and gene × environment interaction models. A tutorial site and question forum are also available.

  • View HTML

      • Send article to Kindle

      To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

      Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

      Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

      umx: Twin and Path-Based Structural Equation Modeling in R
      Available formats
      ×

      Send article to Dropbox

      To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.

      umx: Twin and Path-Based Structural Equation Modeling in R
      Available formats
      ×

      Send article to Google Drive

      To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.

      umx: Twin and Path-Based Structural Equation Modeling in R
      Available formats
      ×

Copyright

© The Author(s) 2019
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Corresponding author

Author for correspondence: Timothy C. Bates, Email: tim.bates@ed.ac.uk

References

Hide All
Archontaki, D., Lewis, G. J., & Bates, T. C. (2013). Genetic influences on psychological well-being: A nationally representative twin study. Journal of Personality, 81, 221–230.
Bates, T. C., Hansell, N. K., Martin, N. G., & Wright, M. J. (2016). When does socioeconomic status (SES) moderate the heritability of IQ? No evidence for g × SES interaction for IQ in a representative sample of 1176 Australian adolescent twin pairs. Intelligence, 56, 10–15.
Bates, T. C., Lewis, G. J., & Weiss, A. (2013). Childhood socioeconomic status amplifies genetic effects on adult intelligence. Psychological Science, 24, 2111–2116.
Boker, S., Neale, M., Maes, H., Wilde, M., Spiegel, M., Brick, T., … Fox, J. (2011). OpenMx: An open source extended structural equation modeling framework. Psychometrika, 76, 306–317.
Briley, D. A., Harden, K. P., Bates, T. C., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2015). Nonparametric estimates of gene x environment interaction using local structural equation modeling. Behavior Genetics, 45, 581–596.
Duncan, O. D., Haller, A. O., & Portes, A. (1968). Peer influences on aspirations: A reinterpretation. American Journal of Sociology, 74, 119–137.
Fox, J., Nie, Z., & Byrnes, J. (2014). sem: Structural equation models (Version 3.1–5). Retrieved from http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=sem
Hershberger, S. L. (2003). The growth of structural equation modeling: 1994–2001. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 10, 35–46.
IBM Corp. (2013). IBM SPSS Statistics for Macintosh, Version 22.0. Armonk, NY: Author.
Jöreskog, K. G. (1969). A general method for analysis of covariance structures. Biometrics, 57, 239–251.
Knopik, V. S., Neiderhiser, J. M., DeFries, J. C., & Plomin, R. (2016). Behavioral genetics (7th ed.). London: Worth Publishers.
Lewis, G. J., & Bates, T. C. (2010). Genetic evidence for multiple biological mechanisms underlying ingroup favoritism. Psychological Science, 21, 1623–1628.
Lewis, G. J., & Bates, T. C. (2014). Common heritable effects underpin concerns over norm maintenance and in-group favoritism: Evidence from genetic analyses of right-wing authoritarianism and traditionalism. Journal of Personality, 82, 297–309.
MacCallum, R. C. (2003). 2001 Presidential address: Working with imperfect models. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 38, 113–139.
Maes, H. H., Sullivan, P. F., Bulik, C. M., Neale, M. C., Prescott, C. A., Eaves, L. J., & Kendler, K. S. (2004). A twin study of genetic and environmental influences on tobacco initiation, regular tobacco use and nicotine dependence. Psychological Medicine, 34, 1251–1261.
Martin, N. G., Eaves, L. J., Heath, A. C., Jardine, R., Feingold, L. M., & Eysenck, H. J. (1986). Transmission of social attitudes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 83, 4364–4368.
Martin, N. G., & Jardine, R. (1986). Eysenck’s contributions to behaviour genetics. In Modgil, S. &Modgil, C. (Eds.), Hans Eysenck: Consensus and controversy (pp. 13–47). Philadelpia, PA: Falmer Press.
McArdle, J. J., & Boker, S. M. (1990). RAMpath. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998–2016). Mplus user’s guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Neale, M. C., Hunter, M. D., Pritikin, J. N., Zahery, M., Brick, T. R., Kirkpatrick, R. M., … Boker, S. M. (2016). OpenMx 2.0: Extended structural equation and statistical modeling. Psychometrika, 81, 535–549.
Neale, M. C., & Maes, H. H. (1996). Methodology for genetics studies of twins and families (6th ed.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Neale, M. C., & Martin, N. G. (1989). The effects of age, sex, and genotype on self-report drunkenness following a challenge dose of alcohol. Behavior Genetics, 19, 63–78.
Pearl, J. (2009). Causality: Models, reasoning and inference (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Purcell, S. (2002). Variance components models for gene-environment interaction in twin analysis. Twin Research, 5, 554–571.
Ritchie, S. J., & Bates, T. C. (2013). Enduring links from childhood mathematics and reading achievement to adult socioeconomic status. Psychological Science, 24, 1301–1308.
Rosseel, Y. (2012). Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48, 1–36.
SAS Institute Inc. (2003). SAS/STAT Software, Version 9.1. Cary, NC: SAS Institute.
semTools Contributors. (2016). semTools: Useful tools for structural equation modeling. R package version 0.4–11. Retrieved from https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=semTools
Stata Corp LP. (2016). Stata statistical software: Release 14. College Station, TX: Stata Corp LP.
von Oertzen, T., Brandmaier, A. M., & Tsang, S. (2015). Structural equation modeling with Ωnyx. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 22, 148–161.
Yong-Kyu, K. E. (2009). Handbook of behavior genetics (1st ed.). New York, NY: Springer.

Keywords

Related content

Powered by UNSILO
  • Cited by 10

  • Access
  • Open access

umx: Twin and Path-Based Structural Equation Modeling in R

  • Timothy C. Bates (a1), Hermine Maes (a2) and Michael C. Neale (a2)

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between <date>. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.