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Consider two adolescents: Person One and Person Two. Person One has never used substances and exhibits relatively few behavioral (conduct) problems. On the other hand, Person Two uses substances frequently and more commonly exhibits poor conduct. If you were to guess, which of the individuals would you expect to have lower overall judgment and self-regulation? If you answered Person Two, your intuition is correct. Scientific studies have confirmed our intuition; individuals with substance use and other behavioral problems have been found to have poorer judgment and selfregulatory skills. While the association with lower judgment and self-regulation is seemingly obvious and commonsensical, the true relationship between poor judgment and substance abuse is less clear. Namely, how do we know if drug use causes poor judgment or poor judgment and low self-regulation are risk factors for substance abuse? Behavioral genetic researchers at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and other research institutes are designing research to decipher just this.