Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T03:30:06.315Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Psychosocial influences: Critiques, findings, and research needs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2000

MICHAEL RUTTER
Affiliation:
University of London

Abstract

Nongenetic factors have a major influence on psychopathology. Knowledge on specific psychosocial risk and protective mechanisms is more limited because of inadequate attention to measurement issues, person effects on the environment, and the possibility of genetic mediation. Nevertheless, a range of research strategies may be used to provide rigorous tests of causal hypotheses; these have shown the importance of environmentally mediated risks. Challenges for the future include greater use of such research strategies, improved measures of psychosocial risks that can be applied to large samples, investigation of origins of risks, identification of causes of time trends in levels of psychopathology, delineation of psychosocial effects on lifetime liability, understanding of environmental effects on the organism, appreciation of processes involved in developmental programming, and understanding of individual differences in susceptibility.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)