Title: Distinguishing differential susceptibility, diathesis-stress and vantage sensitivity: beyond the single gene and environment model,
Abstract: Currently, two main approaches exist to distinguish differential
susceptibility from diathesis-stress and vantage sensitivity in genotype x
environment interaction (GxE) research: Regions of significance (RoS) and
competitive-confirmatory approaches. Each is limited by their
single-gene/single-environment foci given that most phenotypes are the product
of multiple interacting genetic and environmental factors. We thus addressed
these two concerns in a recently developed R package (LEGIT) for constructing
GxE interaction models with latent genetic and environmental scores using
alternating optimization. Herein we test, by means of computer simulation,
diverse GxE models in the context of both single and multiple genes and
environments. Results indicate that the RoS and competitive-confirmatory
approaches were highly accurate when the sample size was large, whereas the
latter performed better in small samples and for small effect sizes. The
confirmatory approach generally had good accuracy (a) when effect size was
moderate and N >= 500 and (b) when effect size was large and N >= 250, whereas
RoS performed poorly. Computational tools to determine the type of GxE of
multiple genes and environments are provided as extensions in our LEGIT R
package.