Margherita Malanchini

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London

The study examined the etiology of individual differences in early drawing and of its longitudinal association with school mathematics. Participants (N = 14,760), members of the Twins Early Development Study, were assessed on their ability to draw a human figure, including number of features, symmetry, and proportionality. Human figure drawing was...

Spatial abilities–defined broadly as the capacity to manipulate mental representations of objects and the relations between them–have been studied widely, but with little agreement reached concerning their nature or structure. Two major putative spatial abilities are " mental rotation " (rotating mental models) and " visualisation " (complex manipu...

Individuals differ in their level of general anxiety as well as in their level of anxiety towards specific activities, such as mathematics and spatial tasks. Both specific anxieties correlate moderately with general anxiety, but the aetiology of their association remains unexplored. Moreover, the factor structure of spatial anxiety is to date unkno...

Significance Spatial ability is a strong predictor of several important outcomes, including success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers. This ability is widely believed to be multifactorial, with numerous components and subdomains, such as “mental rotation,” “scanning,” and “mechanical reasoning.” This l...

Extant literature has established a consistent association between aspects of reading motivation, such as enjoyment and self-perceived ability, and reading achievement, in that more motivated readers are generally more skilled readers. However, the developmental etiology of this relation is yet to be investigated. The present study explores the dev...

Genetic effects on academic achievement are likely to capture environmental, developmental, and psychological processes. How these processes contribute to translating genetic dispositions into observed academic achievement remains critically under-investigated. Here, we examined the role of non-cognitive skills (e.g., motivation, attitudes and self...

Diverse tests of cognitive abilities correlate about 0.30 phenotypically and about 0.60 genetically. Their phenotypic overlap defines general cognitive ability (g), driven largely by genetic overlap. Consequently, much of our understanding of the genetic landscape of specific cognitive tests likely reflects g rather than the tests themselves. Remov...

Background Subcortical ischemic vascular cognitive impairment (SIVCI) is the most common form of vascular cognitive impairment. Exercise is a potentially effective intervention for SIVCI. However, the mechanisms through which exercise promotes brain health and cognitive function are not well understood. Telomere length restoration and an increased...

Research has implicated spatial ability as a robust predictor of aptitude, interest, and choice in STEM education and career pursuits. We address three under-explored questions regarding the role of spatial ability in STEM. First, can spatial ability consistently predict STEM success beyond other cognitive skills? Second, what aspects of spatial ab...

To examine the combined effects of maths anxiety (MA), maths self-efficacy (MSE), and maths interest (MI) on STEM career choice, we analysed self-report data from 7908 Twins Early Development Study participants, collected at ages 16 (MSE, MI), 18 (MA) and 21 (STEM career choice). When analysed in the same model, MSE did not independently predict ST...

Background: Emotional problems co-occur with difficulties in verbal and non-verbal cognitive performance, yet the pathways underlying their association remain poorly understood: It is unclear whether effects may be causal, and to what extent they may run from cognition to emotion, or vice versa.Methods: Our pre-registered analyses included 5,124 tw...

Background Telomere length (TL) has been linked to cognitive function, decline and dementia. This study aimed to explore whether both measured TL and genetic disposition for TL predict dimensions of cognitive performance in a longitudinal sample of older UK adults. Methods We analysed data from PROTECT study participants aged ≥50 years without a d...

Diverse cognitive abilities correlate about 0.30 phenotypically and about 0.60 genetically. Their phenotypic overlap defines general cognitive ability (g), driven largely by genetic overlap. Consequently, much of our understanding of the genetic landscape of specific cognitive abilities (SCA) likely reflects g rather than the SCA themselves. Removi...

Academic achievement is partly heritable and highly polygenic. However, genetic effects on academic achievement are not independent of environmental processes. We investigated whether aspects of the family environment mediated genetic effects on academic achievement across development. Our sample included 5151 children who participated in the Twins...

Non-cognitive skills, such as motivation and self-regulation, are partly heritable and predict academic achievement beyond cognitive skills. However, how the relationship between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement changes over development is unclear. The current study examined how cognitive and non-cognitive skills are associated with ac...

Background: Comorbidity and heterogeneity in psychiatric disorders may stem from a general psychopathology (p) factor influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Although the relative contributions of these influences on psychopathology are established, the longitudinal associations between p-factor and specific environmental exposures ac...

Specific cognitive abilities (SCA) correlate genetically about 0.50, which underpins general cognitive ability (g), but it also means that there is considerable genetic specificity. If g is not controlled, then genomic prediction of specific cognitive abilities is not truly specific because they are all perfused with g. Here, we investigated the he...

Academic underachievement refers to school performance which falls below expectations. Focusing on the pivotal first stage of education, we explored a quantitative measure of underachievement using genomically predicted achievement delta (GPAΔ), which reflects the difference between observed and expected achievement predicted by genome-wide polygen...

Objective: The role of negative parenting in the development of callous-unemotional (CU) traits remains unclear. Both negative parenting and CU traits are influenced by genetic and environmental factors. The authors used genetically informed longitudinal cross-lagged models to examine the extent to which reciprocal effects between negative parenti...

Evidence indicates a great degree of genetic overlap between psychiatric diagnoses. Accounting for these transdiagnostic effects can sharpen research on disorder-specific genetic architecture. Here we isolate genetic effects that are shared across 11 major psychiatric disorders (p factor) to gain further insight into genetic specificity and comorbi...

Academic achievement is partly heritable and highly polygenic. However, genetic effects on academic achievement are not independent of environmental processes. We investigated whether aspects of the family environment mediated genetic effects on academic achievement across development. Our sample included 5,151 children who participated in the Twin...

Academic achievement is partly heritable and highly polygenic. However, genetic effects on academic achievement are not independent of environmental processes. We investigated whether aspects of the family environment mediated genetic effects on academic achievement across development. Our sample included 5,151 children who participated in the Twin...

Evidence indicates a great degree of genetic overlap between psychiatric diagnoses. Accounting for these transdiagnostic effects can sharpen research on disorder-specific genetic architecture. Here we isolate genetic effects that are shared across 11 major psychiatric disorders (p factor) to gain further insight into genetic specificity and comorbi...

Specific cognitive abilities (SCA) correlate genetically about 0.50, which underpins general cognitive ability (g), but it also means that there is considerable genetic specificity. If g is not controlled, then genomic prediction of specific cognitive abilities is not truly specific because they are all perfused with g. Here, we investigated the he...

Children who experience environmental adversities are at increased risk of both internalizing and externalizing disorders. Epigenetic mechanisms may regulate the influence of environmental adversities on mental health. We examined the hypothesis that salivary DNA-methylation patterns of pace of biological aging (Dunedin pace of biological aging [Du...

Introduction Previous studies have shown associations between cognitive function and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in older adults. Few studies have considered the extent to which a genetic predisposition for higher CRP levels contributes to this association. Methods Data was analyzed from 7,817 UK participants aged >50 years as part of the PROT...

Intelligence and mental health are the core pillars of individual adaptation, growth, and opportunity. Here, we charted across childhood and adolescence the developmental interplay between the p-factor of psychopathology, which captures the experience of symptoms across the spectrum of psychiatric disorders, and the g-factor of general intelligence...

Noncognitive skills such as motivation and self-regulation, predict academic achievement beyond cognitive skills. However, the role of genetic and environmental factors and of their interplay in these developmental associations remains unclear. We provide a comprehensive account of how cognitive and noncognitive skills contribute to academic achiev...

Noncognitive skills such as motivation and self-regulation, predict academic achievement beyond cognitive skills. However, the role of genetic and environmental factors and of their interplay in these developmental associations remains unclear. We provide a comprehensive account of how cognitive and noncognitive skills contribute to academic achiev...

The Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) is a longitudinal study following a cohort of twins born 1994–1996 in England and Wales. Of the 13,759 families who originally consented to take part, over 10,000 families remain enrolled in the study. The current focus of TEDS is on mental health in the mid‐twenties. Making use of over 25 years of genetical...

Self-injurious thoughts and behaviours (SITBs) have been associated with dysfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) in children and young people, suggesting that objective ANS measures may aid assessment of suicide risk, but a systematic synthesis of this literature is currently lacking. Methods Following a pre-registered protocol (PROSPERO...

A systematic understanding of the aetiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and their co-occurrence with other conditions during childhood and adolescence remains incomplete. In the current meta-analysis, we synthesized the literature on (1) the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to NDDs, (2) the genetic and environmental over...

Household chaos, which reflects the level of disorganisation and confusion that children experience in their family homes, is thought to precipitate the transmission of family background inequality in education. Here, we present a longitudinal, genetically informative study of the developmental interplay between child-perceived household chaos and...

Online measurement is on the rise in every subdiscipline of the major social sciences, such as psychology, sociology or educational studies. This trend may stem from the numerous advantages offered by this mode of data collection, including the facts that it is cost-efficient and enables the collection of large and diversified samples quickly. Howe...

Background Individual differences in symptoms of behaviour problems in childhood and adolescence are not primarily due to nature or nurture – another substantial source of variance is non‐shared environment (NSE). However, few specific environmental factors have been found to account for these NSE estimates. This creates a ‘missing NSE' gap analogo...

Most research on individual differences in performance on tests of cognitive ability focuses on general cognitive ability (g), the highest level in the three-level Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) hierarchical model of intelligence. About 50% of the variance of g is due to inherited DNA differences (heritability) which increases across development. Much...

Because deficits in self-regulation (SR) are core features of many diverse psychological disorders, SR may constitute one of many dimensions that underlie shared variance across diagnostic boundaries (e.g., the p factor, a dimension reflecting shared variance across multiple psychological disorders). SR definitions encompass constructs mapping onto...

The DNA revolution has energized research on interactions between genes and environments (GxE) by creating indices of G (polygenic scores) that are powerful predictors of behavioral traits. Here, we test the extent to which polygenic scores for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and neuroticism moderate associations between parent reports of...

Background. Self-injurious thoughts and behaviours (SITBs) have been associated with dysfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) in children and young people, suggesting that objective ANS measures may aid assessment of suicide risk, but a systematic synthesis of this literature is currently lacking. Methods. Following a pre-registered protoc...

Understanding how parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills influence offspring education is essential for educational, family and economic policy. We use genetics (GWAS-by-subtraction) to assess a latent, broad non-cognitive skills dimension. To index parental effects controlling for genetic transmission, we estimate indirect parental genetic ef...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all our lives, not only through the infection itself but also through the measures taken to control the spread of the virus (e.g. lockdown). Aims Here, we investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented lockdown affected the mental health of young adults in England and Wales. Method We compar...

Dysregulation of biological stress response, as measured by cortisol output, has been a primary candidate mechanism for how social experiences become biologically embedded. Cortisol is the primary output of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Cortisol levels vary systematically across the day and change in response to both sudden, acute...

Background Although intelligence and mental health have been recognised as the two core pillars of individual adaptation, growth, and opportunity, little is known about their interrelation. Here we charted the developmental interplay between the g-factor of general intelligence that describes the ability to think, reason, and learn, and the p-facto...

A systematic understanding of the aetiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), their co-occurrence, and co-occurrence with other conditions during childhood and adolescence remains incomplete. This meta-analysis bridges gaps in our knowledge. First, we meta-analysed the literature on the relative contribution of genetic and environmental facto...

A systematic understanding of the aetiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), their co-occurrence, and co-occurrence with other conditions during childhood and adolescence remains incomplete. This meta-analysis bridges gaps in our knowledge. First, we meta-analysed the literature on the relative contribution of genetic and environmental facto...

Most research on individual differences in performance on tests of cognitive ability focuses on general cognitive ability (g), the highest level in the three-level Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) hierarchical model of intelligence. About 50% of the variance of g is due to inherited DNA differences (heritability) which increases across development. Much...

Psychiatric disorders represent a significant burden in our societies. Despite the convincing evidence pointing at gene and gene-environment interaction contributions, the role of genetics in the aetiology of psychiatric disease is still poorly understood. Forward genetic screens in animal models have helped elucidate causal links. Here we discuss...

Aims: Here we report the results of the first systematic investigation of genetic and environmental influences on 57 psychological traits covering major issues in emerging adulthood such as aspirations, thoughts and attitudes, relationships and personality. We also investigate how these traits relate to physical and mental health, educational atta...

Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have uncovered DNA variants associated with individual differences in general cognitive ability (g), but these are far from capturing heritability estimates obtained from twin studies. A major barrier to finding more of this 'missing heritability' is assessment-the use of diverse measures across GWA studies as...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all our lives, not only through the infection itself, but also through the measures taken to control the virus spread (e.g., lockdown). Here we investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented lockdown affected the mental health of young adults in England and Wales. We compared the mental health symptoms o...

Importance: Economic and racial inequality is linked to disparities in children's mental health. Biomarkers that reflect these social disparities are lacking. Objective: We examined the hypothesis that salivary DNA-methylation patterns of higher inflammation and faster pace of biological aging are economically, racially and ethnically stratified an...

Non-ability-based confidence is confidence in one’s ability that is not calibrated to actual ability. Here, we examine what psychological factors are associated with possessing more or less confidence relative to one’s ability and to what extent genetic and environmental processes contribute to these links. Using data from the Texas Twin Project (...

Background One goal of the DNA revolution is to predict problems in order to prevent them. We tested here if the prediction of behaviour problems from genome‐wide polygenic scores (GPS) can be improved by creating composites across ages and across raters and by using a multi‐GPS approach that includes GPS for adult psychiatric disorders as well as...

The progression of lifelong trajectories of socioeconomic inequalities in health and mortality begins in childhood. Dysregulation in cortisol, a stress hormone that is the primary output of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, has been hypothesized to be a mechanism for how early environmental adversity compromises health. However, despit...

Despite the well-documented negative implications of math anxiety on math learning, a scarcity of theory-guided, long-term longitudinal research limits knowledge about how math anxiety develops over time. Guided by the Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions (Pekrun, 2006), the present study addresses this gap by examining (1) how math anxiety...

ADHD is a heterogeneous disorder that is highly impairing. Early, accurate diagnosis maximizes long-term positive outcomes for youth with ADHD. Tests of executive functioning (EF) are potential tools for screening and differential diagnosis of ADHD subtypes. However, previous research has been inconsistent regarding the specificity and magnitude of...

Background and objectives: Children who grow up in socioeconomic disadvantage face increased burden of disease and disability throughout their lives. One hypothesized mechanism for this increased burden is that early-life disadvantage accelerates biological processes of aging, increasing vulnerability to subsequent disease. To evaluate this hypoth...

We examine whether salivary DNA-methylation and polygenic scores of an inflammatory marker (hs-CRP) are associated with child and adolescent mental health and whether molecular profiles and mental health phenotypes are socially stratified. Public registration: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/TA29G Retrieved from osf.io/t3vnp

We investigated how the COVID-19 crisis and the extraordinary experience of lockdown affected young adults in England and Wales psychologically. One month after lockdown commenced (T2), we assessed 30 psychological and behavioural traits in more than 4000 twins in their mid-twenties and compared their responses to the same traits assessed in 2018 (...

Background One goal of the DNA revolution is to predict problems in order to prevent them. We tested here if the prediction of behaviour problems from genome-wide polygenic scores (GPS) can be improved by creating composites across ages and across raters and by using a multi-GPS approach that includes GPS for adult psychiatric disorders as well as...

In the 21st century, emerging adulthood has stretched from the late teens through the twenties. Although this extended transition to adulthood can create stress, it can also offer opportunities to explore vocations and relationships that provide a better fit to individuals proclivities, including their genetic propensities. Here we report the resul...

Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have uncovered DNA variants associated with individual differences in general cognitive ability (g), but these are far from capturing heritability estimates obtained from twin studies. A major barrier is measurement heterogeneity. In a series of four studies, we created a 15-minute, online, gamified measure of...

Little is known about the genetic architecture of traits affecting educational attainment other than cognitive ability. We used genomic structural equation modeling and prior genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of educational attainment (n = 1,131,881) and cognitive test performance (n = 257,841) to estimate SNP associations with educational at...

Understanding how parents shape their children’s educational trajectories is a socially important research goal. Evidence on the effects of parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills on offspring education is weakened by poor assessments of non-cognitive skills and inadequate accounting for genetic inheritance. In this preregistered study, we use...

Performance in everyday spatial orientation tasks (e.g., map reading and navigation) has been considered functionally separate from performance on more abstract object-based spatial abilities (e.g., mental rotation and visualization). However, few studies have examined the link between spatial orientation and object-based spatial skills, and even f...

Background High academic anxiety is associated with poor academic performance. One proposed mechanism of this association is that academic anxiety promotes learning avoidance behaviours, which in turn hinders students' opportunities to learn and grow. However, this proposition has not been thoroughly examined, particularly in afterschool learning s...

Children who grow up in socioeconomically disadvantaged families face increased burden of disease and disability as they mature into adulthood. One hypothesized mechanism for this increased burden is that early-life disadvantage and its associated psychological stress accelerate biological processes of aging, increasing vulnerability to subsequent...

We investigated how the COVID-19 crisis and the extraordinary experience of lockdown affected young adults in England and Wales psychologically. One month after lockdown commenced (T2), we assessed 30 psychological and behavioural traits in 4,000 twins in their mid-twenties and compared their responses to the same traits assessed in 2018 (T1). Mean...

Students who are highly anxious about mathematics-related activities generally exhibit lower mathematics achievement and motivation compared to their less anxious counterparts. Despite negative implications of mathematics anxiety (MA) on mathematics learning, there is a paucity of research examining how MA develops over time. Using the Longitudinal...

Introduction Mathematics anxiety (MA) is an important risk factor hindering the development of confidence and capability in mathematics and participation in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce. The aim of the present study is to further our understanding of these relations in adolescence by adopting a threefold approach....

Maximizing the flow of students through the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline is important to promoting human capital development and reducing economic inequality. A critical juncture in the STEM pipeline is the highly cumulative sequence of secondary school math courses. Students from disadvantaged schools are less likely...

Students struggling with mathematics anxiety (MA) tend to show lower levels of mathematics self-efficacy and interest as well as lower performance. The current study addresses: (1) how MA relates to different aspects of mathematics attitudes (self-efficacy and interest), ability (understanding numbers, problem-solving ability, and approximate numbe...

Cognitive ability and educational success predict positive outcomes across the lifespan, from higher earnings to better health and longevity. The shared positive outcomes associated with cognitive ability and education are emblematic of the strong interconnections between them. Part of the observed associations between cognitive ability and educati...

Educational attainment (EA) is influenced by cognitive abilities and by other characteristics and traits. However little is known about the genetic architecture of these "non-cognitive" contributions to EA. Here, we use Genomic Structural Equation Modelling and results of prior genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of EA (N = 1,131,881) and cogni...

Cognitive ability and educational success predict positive outcomes across the lifespan, from higher earnings to better health and longevity. The shared positive outcomes associated with cognitive ability and education are emblematic of the strong interconnections between them. Part of the observed associations between cognitive ability and educati...

Genetic associations with biopsychosocial phenotypes are often interpreted as evidence that the genome codes for fixed end-states. Instead, a given genotype might regulate a dynamic range of phenotypes in response to environmental change. We collected hair cortisol (n = 1,104), salivary cortisol in reaction to an in-laboratory stressor (n = 537), a...

The Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) is a longitudinal twin study that recruited over 16,000 twin-pairs born between 1994 and 1996 in England and Wales through national birth records. More than 10,000 of these families are still engaged in the study. TEDS was and still is a representative sample of the population in England and Wales. Rich cogn...