Behavioral Genetics Flashcards
What do Genes contain instructions for?
making all the different kinds of proteins you make
is the blueprint for a brain conserved across evolution? How do small differences have a big effect?
The blueprint for a brain is highly conserved across evolution, but small differences can have big effects
What is a genotype?
- The sequence of letters of your genome
- mostly, but not exclusively, inherited from parents
What is a phenotype?
A measurable trait
How do genes, phenotypes, and environments interact?
- Genes and phenotypes affect heritability
- genes interact with our environment to determine behavior
- Environment can affect phenotypes, but not our genotypes
What is epigenetics?
the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work
What is heritability?
How much of a phenotype is inherited, presumably due to genetic factors
What do twin studies show about the heritability of phenotypes?
- Phenotypes are more inheritable in identical twins
- Phenotypes still are sometimes inherited in fraternal twins
- means heritability differences are genetic, but not exclusively genetic
Are differences in “success” or widely desired behavioral traits heritable (e.g., reading scores)?
No, not inheritable (due to epigenetics)
Why can we not make accurate predictions about a phenotype based on genotype?
- Our environment can change our phenotype, but it cannot change our genotype
- genotypes cannot determine our phenotype, and therefore they cannot make predictions as well
