Findings on a Study

A two-way between-subjects analysis of variance was conducted to determine whether study participants' depression scores (as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory) were significantly related to the Adoption Status and/or Genetic History of substance abuse variables. The findings observed for this analysis, along with cell and marginal means, are presented in Table 4.1.

As can be seen from inspection of Table 4.1, the conducted analysis of variance revealed two main effects, one for the Adoption Status variable (F=5.29; p<.05) and one for the Genetic History of substance abuse variable (F=8.06, p<.01). Observation of marginal means revealed the nature of both of the observed main effects.

First, adoptees (Marginal Mean = 7.62) were significantly

Analysis of Variance Summary Table: Depression Data

. . .
ent for the group of adoptees but not for the non-adopted group. Specifically, it was found that for the adopted group substance usage increased as genetic family history went from negative to positive, but this increase was not observed for the non-adopted group. One possible explanation for this finding could be that genetic contribution is really only a predisposition to substance abuse, a predisposition that requires other factors such as stress to cause it to begin exerting a tangible effect. Thus, greater stress in the adopted group may have triggered this predisposition while the contribution remained dormant in the non-adopted group. Another explanation for the unexpected genetic contribution interaction effect is methodological and involves the use of the MAC scale of the MMPI. According to Kaplan and Saccuzzo (1982) while the scale is routinely used for assessment of a proclivity to all forms of substance abuse, it was originally developed for alcohol use. It could be that there are differences in scores related to the type of abuse subjects are prone to engage in; and since the subject groups were not equated (prior to the study) for type of substance abuse, there might have been a selection effect which manifes
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Some common words found in the essay are:
, Genetic History, Depression Findings, Adoption Status, Depression Inventory, adoption status, analysis variance, history substance abuse, significantly related, history substance, table 41, substance abuse, and/or genetic, findings observed,
Approximate Word count = 3762
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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