Genetic differential susceptibility to the parent–child relationship quality and the life span development of compassion Dobewall, Henrik Zwir Nawrocki, Jorge Sergio Igor Dopamine and oxytocsignaling pathways Gene–environment interaction Parent ing Personality developmentin Compassion Academy of Finland, Grant/Award Numbers: 308676, 286284, 134309, 126925, 121584, 124282, 129378, 117787, 41071, 322098; Social Insurance Institution of Finland; Juho Vainio Foundation; Yrjo Jahnsson Foundation; Competitive State Research Financing of the Expert ResponsibilityArea ofKuopio, Tampere and Turku University Hospitals, Grant/Award Number: X51001; Paavo Nurmi Foundation; Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research; Finnish Cultural Foundation; The Sigrid Juselius Foundation; Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation; EmilAaltonen Foundation; Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation; Diabetes Research Foundation of Finnish Diabetes Association; EUHorizon 2020, Grant/Award Numbers: 755320, 848146; European Research Council, Grant/Award Number: 742927; TampereUniversity Hospital Supporting Foundation; Finnish Society of Clinical Chemistry The development of compassion for others might be influenced by the social experiences made during childhood and has a genetic component. No research has yet investigated whether the parent-child relationship quality interacts with genetic variation in the oxytocin and dopamine systems in predicting compassion over the life span. In the prospective Young Finns Study (N = 2099, 43.9% men), we examined the interaction between mother-reported emotional warmth and intolerance toward their child assessed in 1980 (age of participants, 3-18 years) and two established genetic risk scores for oxytocin levels and dopamine signaling activity. Dispositional compassion for others was measured with the Temperament and Character Inventory 1997, 2001, and 2012 (age of participants, 20-50 years). We found a gene-environment interaction (p = .031) that remained marginally significant after adjustment for multiple testing. In line with the differential susceptibility hypothesis, only participants who carry alleles associated with low dopamine signaling activity had higher levels of compassion when growing up with emotionally warm parents, whereas they had lower levels of compassion when their parents were emotionally cold. Children's genetic variability in the dopamine system might result in plasticity to early environmental influences that have a long-lasting effect on the development of compassion. However, our findings need replication. 2021-10-06T11:25:55Z 2021-10-06T11:25:55Z 2021-08-22 journal article Dobewall, H., Keltikangas-Järvinen, L., Saarinen, A., Lyytikäinen, L. -. P., Zwir, I., Cloninger, R., Raitakari, O. T., Lehtimäki, T., & Hintsanen, M. (2021). Genetic differential susceptibility to the parent–child relationship quality and the life span development of compassion. Developmental Psychobiology, 63, e22184. [https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.22184] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/70691 10.1002/dev.22184 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/848146 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/755320 nfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/ERC/742927 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Wiley