Gene-Environment Interplay

Although the social and behavioral sciences were long divided over the relative sway of nature and nurture, an emerging field of inquiry, the study of gene-environment interplay, seeks to undermine these distinctions by looking at how these influences on social and behavioral outcomes are interdependent. This article provides a brief overview of three forms of gene-environment interplay: additive genetic and environmental effects, gene-environment correlations, and gene-environment interactions. A distinction is drawn between statistical genetic and molecular genetic models of gene-environment interactions. Finally, a variety of models of gene-environment interactions are described, and the limitations of current research on gene-environment interplay are briefly assessed.