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Gene-Environment Interaction

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Definition

Gene-environment interactions (GxE) refer to instances in which the influence of a certain genotype depends on the environmental context, or vice versa: the influence of the environment depends on the individual’s genotype. Notably, the term “environment” refers to anything that is not genetic, e.g., nutrients, viruses, parenting, peers, culture, and the weather. Statistically, GxE are nonadditive influences of genetic and environmental factors on an individual’s characteristic, behavior, or disease.

Introduction

The understanding of GxE can help answer questions such as why a traumatic event leads certain individuals, but not others, to develop a posttraumatic stress disorder; why medications, treatments, and interventions only benefit some patients; why some teenagers appear to be more susceptible to peer pressure; and why children are not equally affected by abusive parenting. We briefly review the available designs for the study of GxE, present the possible forms GxE can...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Reut Avinun & Ariel Knafo-Noam

Authors
  1. Reut Avinun
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  2. Ariel Knafo-Noam
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Reut Avinun .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Ilan Dar-Nimrod

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Avinun, R., Knafo-Noam, A. (2016). Gene-Environment Interaction. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1471-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1471-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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