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| every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us; external influence. |
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| the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. |
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threadlike structure made of DNA molecules that contain the genes
• 23 (mother) + 23 (father) = 46 (baby) |
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| DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) |
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| a complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up the chromosomes. |
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the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; a segment of DNA capable of synthesizing a protein.
• Small segments of giant DNA molecules (words of the chapter). |
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twins who develop from a single (monozygotic) fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms.
• Extraversion and neuroticism, identical twins are much more similar than fraternal twins. |
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| twins who develop from separate (dizygotic) fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than brother and sisters, but they share a fetal environment. |
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Heredity predisposes one quick apparent aspect of personality - a person's characteristic emotional stability, sociability and activity level, which provides building block for our enduring personality.
1. Difficult babies: irritable, intense, and unpredictable.
2. Easy babies: cheerful, relaxed, and predictable.
3. Slow-to-warm-up babies: tend to resist or withdraw from new people. |
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| the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity). |
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| the study of the roots of behavior and mental processes, using the principles of natural selection and focus on what makes us so much alike as humans. |
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| the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those that lead to increased reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations. |
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| a random error in gene replication that leads to a change. |
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| in psychology, the biologically and socially influenced characteristics by which people define male and female. |
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| the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitude, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. |
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| an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior, which grease the social machinery and free us from self-preoccupation. |
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| the buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. |
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giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identification.
i.e. American culture → big "I" and small "we" |
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giving priority to group goals (often those of the extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.
• Group identifications provide a sense of belonging, a set of values, a network of caring individualists, an assurance of identity.
i.e. South Korean culture |
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| physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone. |
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| the sex chromosome found in both men and women. Females have two X chromosomes; males have one. And X chromosome from each parent produces a female child. |
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| the sex chromosome found only in males. When paired with an X chromosome from the mother, it produces a male child. |
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| the most important of the male sex hormones. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs in the fetus and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty. |
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| a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave. |
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| a set of expected behaviors for males or for females, which vary over time, space, and generations. |
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| our sense of being male or female. |
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| the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role. |
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the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.
• Assumes that that is how children learn gender-linked behavior. |
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| What does the interaction between heredity and experience create? |
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| Our universal human nature and our individual and social diversity. |
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| Genes can either be... What turns on genes? |
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| Active (expressed) or inactive; environmental events turn on genes and when turned on, genes provide the code for creating protein molecules. |
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| the building blocks of physical development. |
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| What are the two types of scientific experiments that behavior geneticists use to tease apart the influence of environment and heredity? |
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1. Control the home environment while varying heredity.
2. Control heredity while varying the home environment. |
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| Thomas Bouchard's discovery that began the study of separated twins and helped shift scientific thinking toward a greater appreciation of genetic influences (1998). |
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Jim Springer and Jim Lewis became the first twin pair studied by University of Minnesota; they discovered to find similarities not only in tastes and physical attributes but also personality, abilities, and fears.
• Both married a woman named Betty (2nd wife) and divorced a woman named Linda → had a son named James, pet dog named Toy, enjoyed wood working, and liked Miller Light. |
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| What two groups are within adoption studies? |
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1. Genetic relatives: biological parents and siblings.
2. Environmental relatives: adoptive parents and siblings.
• Discovery of the studies: Whether biologically related or not, people who grow up together do NOT resemble one another in personality.
◦ Adoptees are more similar to their biological parents in traits, but adoptive parents do influence their children's attitudes, values, and manners. |
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| What is the behavioral hallmark of our species? |
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| Our enormous adaptive capacity and our shared biology enables our developed diversity. |
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| What does it mean that genes are self-regulating? |
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| That rather than acting as blueprints that lead to the same result no matter the context, genes react → environments trigger gene activity and genetically influenced traits also evoke significant responses in other genes. |
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| Dmitry Belyaev's experiment with foxes |
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| Dmitry wanted to understand how human ancestors had domesticated dogs by transforming the fearful fox into a friendly fox → after 40 years and many foxes later, they bred foxes that were docile, eager, and domesticated. |
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| What occurs when traits are selected? |
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Definition
| When certain traits are selected - by conferring a reproductive advantage to an individual or species - those traits, over time, will prevail. |
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| What does nature do with these new gene combinations? |
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| Nature selects advantageous various from among the new gene combo produced at each human conception and the mutations that sometimes result. |
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| What does our adaptive flexibility do in respond to different environments? |
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| Our adaptive flexibility contributes to our fitness - our ability to survive and reproduce. |
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| Where do our behavioral and biological similarities arise from? |
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| Our shared human genome, our common genetic profile. |
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| In what ways are we predisposed to behave? |
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| Nature selects behaviors that increase the likelihood of sending one's genes into the future. |
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| Second Darwinian revolution |
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| The application of evolutionary principles to psychology. |
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| What is the largest gender differences? |
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| What are men attracted to? |
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| To healthy, fertile-appearing women, who are at ages associated with peak fertility because they stood a better chance of sending their genes into the future. |
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| What are women attracted to? |
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| Men who seem mature, dominant, affluent, and with a potential for long-term mating and investment. |
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| When does the formative nurture that conspires with nature begin? |
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| At conception with the prenatal environment in the womb where embryos receive differing nutrition and varying levels of exposure to toxic agents. |
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| How do our experiences affect our overall brain architecture? |
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Definition
| Experience fills in the details, developing neural connections and preparing our brain for thought and language and other later experiences. |
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| What is the pruning process? |
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Definition
After brain maturation provides us with an abundance of neural connections, our experiences trigger the process.
• Sights and smells and touches activate connections and strengthen them.
• Popular paths are broadened and less-traveled paths gradually disappear. |
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| What is the brain's rule? |
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| What occurs during childhood and adolescence? |
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| We seek to fit in with groups and are subject to group influences → accents and slangs reflect culture, and children get their culture from their peers. |
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| What did Howard Gardner conclude about parents and peers? |
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Definition
| That they are complementary. Parents are more important when it comes to education, discipline, and responsibility, while peers are more important for learning cooperation, for fitting it, and inventing styles of interaction. |
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The behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
• There is diversity within cultures → i.e. even in the most individualistic countries, some people manifest collectivist values. |
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| What role does culture play? |
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Human culture supports our species' survival and reproduction by enabling social, educational, and economic systems that give us an edge.
• Human nature manifests human diversity. |
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A feeling that what shames the child shames the family, and what brings honor to the family brings honor to the self.
i.e. Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow. |
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| How are differences between culture explained? |
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| An interaction between our biology and our culture, but even though we differ in surface ways, as members of one species we seem subject to the same psychological forces. |
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• Women enter puberty two years sooner, live five years longer, carry 70% more fat, and have 40 % less muscle.
→ They are more vulnerable to depression, eating disorders, and anxiety.
• Men are four times more likely to commit suicide or suffer alcohol dependence. |
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| The aggression gender gap (men > women) pertains to physical aggression rather than relational aggression, because women are mind terrorists. |
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• Frontal lobes → thicker in women.
• Parietal cortex → thicker in men.
• Differences appear in the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the neural bodies and axons and dendrites. |
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| What does it mean that gender is socially constructed? |
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| Biology initiates, culture accentuates. |
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| Our concepts that help individuals make sense of the world. |
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| combines social learning with cognition, our own thinking. Children view gender roles that are happening out in the world and decide for themselves which they are. |
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| Genes and culture as all-pervasive |
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Genes: but not all powerful, people may defy their genetic bent to reproduce by electing celibacy.
Culture: but not all powerful, people may defy peer pressures and do the opposite of the expected. |
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creating an identical animal out of the gene of an individual.
• 1997: Dolly the sheep.
• 2000: Monkey, clone of a clone, and a cat. |
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| What influences us and our behavior? |
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Definition
1. Prenatal → Mom's lifestyle while you are utero.
2. Early Experience → what happens once you are born.
3. Peer Influence → peer influence the kind of language we use.
4. Culture
5. Gender |
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