Transient environmental effects detected in sibling correlations

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Abstract
Detection of environmental effects in sibling correlation is difficult. Mueller (1978) proposed that transient environmental effects should be associated with a decrease in the sibling correlation with increasing age difference between members of a pair of adult sibs. An environmental effect also may be detected by partialing out environmental indicators from correlations between sibs measured at the same chronological age. Correlations for 12 variables were computed between 208 pairs of 10 yr old French Canadian sibs from Montreal [Canada]. Partialing out 7 socio-economic indicators from these correlations resulted in significant changes for 3 skeletal measurements, body weight and triceps skinfold. These results differ from those reported earlier. The proposed method may be sufficiently sensitive to detect environmental effects, provided simple assumptions are met.