Chapter 3 - Birth Flashcards
What does Evolutionary Psychology focus on?
Evolutionary psychology focuses on how universal patterns of behavior and cognitive processes have evolved over time.
What is more important, survival or reproduction?
Reproductive success, not survival success, is the engine of evolution by natural selection.
But why?
What do evolutionary psychologists think about men, women, and attraction?
Modern women have inherited the evolutionary trait to desire mates who possess resources, have qualities linked with acquiring resources (e.g., ambition, wealth, industriousness), and are willing to share those resources with them. On the other hand, men more strongly desire youth and health in women, as both are cues to fertility. These male and female differences have historically been universal in humans.
What are 2 important sex cells?
There are two types of sex cells or gametes involved in reproduction: the male gametes, or sperm, and female gametes, or ova.
GOOD chunk of info about Chromosomes, DNA, genes, and alleles
While other normal human cells have 46 chromosomes (or 23 pair), gametes contain 23 chromosomes. Chromosomes are long threadlike structures found in a cell nucleus that contain genetic material known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA is a helix-shaped molecule made up of nucleotide base pairs [adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T)]. In each chromosome, sequences of DNA make up genes that control or partially control a number of visible characteristics, known as traits, such as eye color, hair color, and so on. A single gene may have multiple possible variations or alleles. An allele is a specific version of a gene. So, a given gene may code for the trait of hair color, and the different alleles of that gene affect which hair color an individual has.
What is Meiosis?
In a process called meiosis, segments of the chromosomes from each parent form pairs and genetic segments are exchanged as determined by chance.
Genotype vs. Phenotype
A person’s genotype is the genetic makeup of that individual. Phenotype, on the other hand, refers to the individual’s inherited physical characteristics.
hOW MANY PairS of CHROMOsoMeS DO PEoPLE HaVE?
46
What is Gregor Mendel’s model of genetic inheritance?
For genes on an autosome (any chromosome other than a sex chromosome), the alleles and their associated traits are autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive. In this model, some genes are considered dominant because they will be expressed. Others, termed recessive, are only expressed in the absence of a dominant gene.
Difference between Heterozygous and Homozygous?
When someone has two copies of the same allele, they are said to be homozygous for that allele. When someone has a combination of alleles for a given gene, they are said to be heterozygous.
What is a mutation?
A mutation is a sudden, permanent change in a gene.
Age and Chromosomal disorders
The most common cause of chromosomal abnormalities is the age of the mother. A 20-year-old woman has a 1 in 800 chance of having a child with a common chromosomal abnormality. A woman of 44, however, has a one in 16 chance.
What are some chromosomal malignancies?
Deletions - A portion of the chromosome is missing or deleted.
Duplications - A portion of the chromosome is duplicated, resulting in extra genetic material.
Translocations - A portion of one chromosome is transferred to another chromosome.
- Reciprocal translocations - Segments from two different chromosomes have been exchanged.
- Robertsonian translocations - An entire chromosome has attached to another at the centromere
Inversions - A portion of the chromosome has broken off, turned upside down, and reattached, therefore the genetic material is inverted.
Insertions - A portion of one chromosome has been deleted from its normal place and inserted into another chromosome.
Rings - A portion of a chromosome has broken off and formed a circle or ring.
Isochromosome - Formed by the mirror image copy of a chromosome segment including the centromere.
Prenatal Screening and MORE
Prenatal screening focuses on finding problems among a large population with affordable and noninvasive methods. The most common screening procedures are routine ultrasounds, blood tests, and blood pressure measurement. Prenatal diagnosis focuses on pursuing additional detailed information once a particular problem has been found, and can sometimes be more invasive.
What are the 3 main purposes of prenatal diagnosis?
(1) to enable timely medical or surgical treatment of a condition before or after birth,
(2) to give the parents the chance to abort a fetus with the diagnosed condition
(3) to give parents the chance to prepare psychologically, socially, financially, and medically for a baby with a health problem or disability, or for the likelihood of a stillbirth.
Nature or Nurture?
[Actually], almost all human features are polygenic (a result of many genes) and multifactorial (a result of many factors, both genetic and environmental).
What does ‘epigenetic’ mean?
The term “epigenetic” has been used in developmental psychology to describe psychological development as the result of an ongoing, bi-directional interchange between heredity and the environment.
Erikson’s Epigenetic Principle
The developmental psychologist Erik Erikson wrote of an epigenetic principle in his book Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968), encompassing the notion that we develop through an unfolding of our personality in predetermined stages, and that our environment and surrounding culture influence how we progress through these stages. This biological unfolding in relation to our socio-cultural settings is done in stages of psychosocial development, where “progress through each stage is in part determined by our success, or lack of success, in all the previous stages.”
