Publications
Papers where I am first author or last author are marked, including joint first and joint last authorship.
Preprints
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Joint last author
Introduces RAVEL, a model that uses two independent polygenic scores, and shows that once assortative mating is modelled, parents’ genotypes explain less than 0.5% as much variance in children’s test scores as the child’s own genotype, down from 10% in naive trio analyses.
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Why educational inequality runs in families: Genetics matter more than environment
Using register data on 569,035 Norwegian children and extended family models, finds that the .31 correlation between parents’ education and children’s school achievement is 68% genetic, 12% parental environment and 20% environment shared with the extended family.
2026
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First author
Are Spouses Similar in Divorce? Investigating Spousal Similarity in Couple-Shared Outcomes
Shows how chaining in-laws lets an extended twin model separate spousal similarity from individual effects, finding in 353,210 Norwegian marriages that ignoring it inflates estimates of individual-level influences on divorce.
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First author
Across 2.5 million Norwegians, lower parental income is linked to nearly all psychiatric disorders, but the pattern is consistent with a causal effect only in adolescence, while shared family risk factors can fully explain it in adulthood.
doi:10.1111/jcpp.70022Bluesky threadBluesky thread (preprint)Open-access preprint
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Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences
In a crowdsourced reanalysis of 100 published studies by independent analysts, only 34% of reanalyses reproduced the original result within a narrow tolerance, although 74% reached the same conclusion.
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Parenthood and mental health throughout the life course: A total population study
Parents had a lower risk of mental disorders than childless adults from their thirties into old age, with larger gaps among men and people with less education, and the pattern held when comparing siblings and identical twins.
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The cost of caring: Gendered health and labor market effects of grandparenthood
Becoming a grandparent sharply raises respiratory infections in the first two years, and ten years on, employed grandmothers are 12% less likely to work full time, compared with 2% for grandfathers.
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People who grew up in low-income households see their GP more often at ages 10–59, most of all for psychological problems, and most of that gap disappears once their own education and income are taken into account.
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Almost all patients at a tertiary pain clinic (92.5%) met the criteria for moderate or severe bodily distress syndrome, and those who did improved less in functioning over the following year.
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Mothers’ genes, acting through parenting, explain 7–18% of the variation in children’s behaviour problems, mostly through a single general factor, and leaving them out distorts estimates of children’s own genetic effects.
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The attractive personality: Like me, but better
Among 538 Norwegian students, people wanted partners similar to themselves on the Big Five traits and especially on social dominance orientation, while low neuroticism was broadly preferred.
2025
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First author
Family models using the partners of twins and siblings in 1.5 million Norwegians show that couples match on education mainly through indirect assortment, especially social homogamy, and that about 38% of parent–child similarity in education is environmental.
doi:10.1038/s41467-025-60483-0Bluesky threadTwitter/X thread
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In 272,351 Norwegian conscripts, higher cognitive ability in late adolescence predicted a lower risk of almost every mental disorder studied at ages 36–40, even between brothers, and the link was strongest among men with little education.
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Models with only additive genetic effects and assortative mating fit much of the data from 82 kinds of relatives, but systematically underestimate how alike identical twins, maternal relatives, in-laws and adoptive relatives are.
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Last author
Personality and fertility dynamics in Norway across four decades – Findings from the HUNT survey
Extraverted people had their first child earlier and had more children, while more neurotic people also started earlier but had fewer children, with stronger links in men.
2024
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First author
Polygenic scores of 47,135 Norwegian co-parents reveal assortative mating in nine of sixteen traits, and greater genetic variance among offspring for six of them, including educational attainment, indicates that family similarity is still increasing.
doi:10.1038/s41467-024-46939-9Twitter/X threadTwitter/X threadTwitter/X thread
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Non-random mating patterns within and across education and mental and somatic health
Among all Norwegian first-time parents, partners are more alike in mental than in physical health, and adjusting for school grades or education reduces health similarity between partners by 30–40%.
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One in nine GP visits in Norway over 14 years involved a mental-health condition, a share exceeded only by musculoskeletal problems and on par with infections and heart and lung conditions.
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As ADHD and internalizing diagnoses among Norwegian adolescents more than doubled, the grade gap between diagnosed and undiagnosed students narrowed, pointing to changing diagnostic thresholds as one contributing factor.
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Insomnia and pain intensity were the strongest correlates of disability, and together with psychological distress and fatigue they accounted for about a quarter of its variation.
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Intergenerational transmission of ADHD behaviors: genetic and environmental pathways
A children-of-twins-and-siblings design shows that parents and children resemble each other in ADHD behaviours mainly through shared genes, with parental behaviours themselves accounting for only about 2% of the variation.
2023
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The association between parental internalizing disorders and child school performance
Nearly one in five Norwegian children has a parent diagnosed with anxiety or depression, and the gap in their school grades is much smaller between siblings and absent among adoptees, arguing against a strong causal effect.
2022
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First author
Adolescents with ADHD had grade point averages more than one standard deviation lower, still 0.6 lower when compared with their own siblings, and the relative deficit was larger for girls and for children of highly educated parents.
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A pre-registered study found that people differ in how predictable they like music to be, but found no support for a link between that preference and autistic or psychotic-like traits.