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Psychology 303 Personality > Chapter 6 Genetics, Evolution, and Personality > Flashcards

Chapter 6 Genetics, Evolution, and Personality Flashcards

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1
Q

Behavioral genetics

A
  • The study of genetic influences on behavioral qualities, including personality
  • result was a mix of psychology and genetics
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2
Q

Twin study method

A

*Study of two types of twins- monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins

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3
Q

Monozygotic (MZ) twins/identical twins

A

*One occurs shortly after conception: fertilized egg divides into two cells, grows separately into a person
-Came from what was a single cell, they are 100% alike genetically
Second occurs in conception itself

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4
Q

Dizygotic (DZ) twins/fraternal twins

A
  • Two eggs and both happened to be fertilized and develop simultaneously
  • Like any pair of brothers, pair of sisters or brother and sister
  • Just happened to be born at the same time, rather than separately
  • 50% alike genetically (0-100%)
  • Many twins are wrong about which kind they are, and errors are just as common for MZ as DZ twins.
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5
Q

Siblings

A

brothers or sisters

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6
Q

Heritability

A

the index of genetic influence on a trait

  • The index represents the amount of variability in the population that’s accounted for by inheritance in the trait under consideration
  • The higher the heritability, the stronger the evidence that genes matter
  • It does not represent the amount of a behavioral characteristic that’s inherited by any one person. Nor does it explain why genes matter.
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7
Q

Determining heritability of given trait

A
  • The amount of variability in the population that’s accounted for by inheritance in the trait under consideration
  • Calculated by Falconer’s Formula: H= 2(r(MZ)-r(DZ))
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8
Q

Kretschmer (1925)

A

*classified people as thin, muscular, or obese

Each group was prone to a different set of disorders

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9
Q

W.H. Sheldon (1942)

A
  • categories to dimensions and looked at normal personality
  • Each quality relates to one of three layer of the embryo
  • Endomorphy, Mesomorphy, Ectomorphy
  • Most people have a little of each quality
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10
Q

Endomorphy

A

*Tendency toward plumpness (digestion); soft and round

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11
Q

Mesomorphy

A

*Toward muscularity (predominance of bone and muscle); rectangular, hard and strong

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12
Q

Ectomorphy

A

tendency toward *thinness (skin and nervous system); delicate and frail, easily overwhelmed by stimulation

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13
Q

Three aspects of temperament

A

Viscerotonia, Somatotonia, Cerebrotonia

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14
Q

Viscerotonia

A
  • relaxation, tolerance, sociability, love of comfort, and easygoingness
  • Endomorphy to viscerotonia
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15
Q

Somatotonia

A
  • boldness, assertiveness and a desire for adventure and activity
  • Temperaments and somatotypes go together
  • Mesomorphy related to somatotonia
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16
Q

Cerebrotonia

A
  • avoidance of interaction, restraint, pain sensitivity, and a mental intensity approaching apprehensiveness
  • Ectomorphy to cerebrotonia
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17
Q

Adoption Study

A
  • looks at how adopted children resemble the biological parents and the adoptive parents
  • Resemblance to biological parents is genetically based, whereas resemblance to adoptive parents is environmentally
  • MZ twins who were adopted and raised separately
  • Similarities compared to MZ twins raised together and DZ twins raised together
  • Environmental impacts should make them different, rather than similar
  • If heredity is important, then MZ twins- even if they were raised apart- should be more similar than DZ twins.
  • If heredity is really important, then MZ twins raised apart should be nearly as similar as MZ twins raised together.
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18
Q

Temperaments

A

*Arnold Buss and Robert Plomin (1984): an inherited personality trait present in early childhood

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19
Q

Observations of the behaviors of young children

A

*Activity level, sociability and emotionality

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20
Q

Activity Level

A
  • person’s overall output of energy or behavior
  • Vigor: the intensity of behavior
  • Tempo: speed
  • High in activity level = high-intensity, fast paced activities
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21
Q

Sociability

A
  • tendency to prefer being with other people, rather than alone
  • Desire for sharing activities, along with the responsiveness and stimulation that are part of interaction
  • Be sociable= value intrinsically the process of interacting with others
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22
Q

Emotionality

A

*tendency to become emotionally aroused- easily and intensely- in upsetting situations

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23
Q

Approach and Avoidance temperaments

A
  • Mary Rothbart
  • tendencies to approach rewards and avoid threats, respectively
  • Avoidance: resembles Buss and Plomin’s (1984) emotionality -> High Emotionality
  • Resemble between approach and sociability (less clear/weakly related)
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24
Q

Effortful Control

A
  • Being focused and restrained
  • Attentional management
  • Ability to suppress approach behavior when approach is situationally inappropriate
  • Planfulness vs. impulsiveness
  • High early in life relate to fewer problems with antisocial behavior later in life
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25
Q

Marshmallow Study

A

*Michel, Shoda et al (1989)
-Studied 4 year old children’s ability to delay gratification using a marshmallow test
-Marshmallow paradigm
-Ability to delay at age 4 predicted:
>SAT scores
>Planfulness
>Intelligence
>Ability to concentration
>Resist temptation
>Self control
>Coping behaviors
>Relationship status (married, divorce, etc.)

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26
Q

Are the Big Five genetically inherited?

A
  • Research suggests that there is invariant genetic influence on the five factors across cultures
  • Personality has five basic factors
  • Genetically influenced substantially and remarkably consistent across factors
  • Yamagata et al. (2006): the five factors may represent a common genetic heritage of the human species
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27
Q

Borkenau, Riemann, Angleitner and Spinath (2001)

A
  • Had raters observe videotapes of people-found genetic influence of Big 5 was still definitely present
  • a twin study in which adult participants were videotaped and then rated by people who didn’t know them.
  • Evidence of genetic influences on all five traits of the five-factor model
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28
Q

Big 5 & Temperaments

A
  • Neuroticism -> Emotionality (Buss and Plomin, 1984) and Avoidance (Rothbart and Posner, 1985)
  • Extroversion -> Approach, Sociability 7 Activity?
  • Agreeableness -> Sociability (Not identical)
  • Agreeableness: liking to be with people; having connotations of being easy to get along with
  • Conscientiousness -> Absence of impulsiveness, high in effortful control
  • Planful, persistent, focused orientation toward life’s activities
  • Openness to Experience -> intelligence/intellect
  • (Buss and Plomin) and genetically influenced
  • Effects on behavior are broad, manifest early in life, and continue throughout the lifespan
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29
Q

Genetics -> Personality -> Risk

A
  • Risk of divorce
  • Adverse life events
  • Social support
  • Attitudes on various topics
  • Whether this is a separate effect, or whether the effect is there because the behavior relates to a temperament or supertrait.
  • Happiness- high heritability, by heritability of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness
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30
Q

Big 5 & Inheritance

A
  • Five supertraits and most of the facet traits are heritable
  • The genetic influences on facets were separate from the genetic influences on the overall traits.
  • Many distinct qualities are genetically influenced, not just a few broad ones
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31
Q

Non-shared environmental effect

A
  • Explains how siblings growing up in same household can be so different
  • The environment seems to affect personality mostly by making twins different
  • Peers: Different friends
  • Roles: Siblings develop roles that play off each other
  • Parental preferencens: Parents sometimes favor one child over another
  • Overstated
  • Shared effects are stronger- behavior measure instead of rating scales
  • Borkenau et al. (2001): a far larger shared environment effect
32
Q

Many aspects of personality have high heritability

A
  • Less informative
  • Size of genetic and environmental influences depends partly on how much variability there is in each domain.
  • A heritability index pertains to a specific population in a specific environment.
  • If one or the other changes substantially, the heritability index can also change substantially.
  • Vocabulary IQ test
  • Low parental education -> large effect of environment, no effect of gene
  • High parental education -> no effect of environment, large effect of gene
  • Be cautious about generalizing estimates of heritability from one sample to the universe of people.
33
Q

Correlations Between Genetic and Environmental Influences

A
  • Cooing baby gets cuddled, screaming baby -> stressful environment
  • People with high levels of intelligence gravitate to environments that foster learning (Dickens and Flynn (2001)
  • A genetic factor makes it more likely that a person will experience an environment different from the environments other people experience.
  • People’s genetic makeup influences the responses they induce from people around them.
34
Q

Gene-by-Environment Interactions/(GXE) interactions

A
  • Make some people more susceptible to environmental factors than others
  • Situations may cause one reaction in a person with one genetic makeup and a different reaction in a person with a different genetic makeup
35
Q

Environmental Effects on Gene Expression

A

*Environments don’t change the strands of DNA that make up the gene, but they do affect their ability to function.

36
Q

Gene expression

A
  • when the gene engages in the processes that create a protein.
  • Varies by region and type of cell involved
  • Is influenced by several factors that affect the gene’s accessibility to other chemicals
  • Methylation
  • Can be affected by many variations in the environment
  • Genes implicated in stress responses
  • Chronic social isolation can greatly alter the expression of genes that are involved in immune responses
37
Q

Methylation

A
  • Attachment of methyl chemical groups to what’s called the gene’s promoter region (its “on” switch)
  • When there’s more methylation -> less gene expression
  • Methylation can be affected by stress level and even by diet
38
Q

Epigenetic effect

A
  • Factors in the environment that cause a gene to get switch “on”
  • in addition to genetic; doesn’t involve a change in the gene itself
  • Can be passed from one generation to the next
  • Changes caused by experience with the environment can be inherited
39
Q

Genome

A
  • the genetic blueprint of the body
  • Map genome was wildly successful
  • The “first draft” was completed in 2000
  • Become faster and less expensive
  • It’s increasingly possible to identify specific genes that influence differences among people- from vulnerability to disorders to normal personality qualities
  • A huge proportion of the human genome is identical for everyone.
40
Q

Alleles

A
  • when different patterns of DNA (genetic material) can occur at a particular location
  • Polymorphism
  • Genotype
41
Q

Polymorphism

A

the existence of a difference

42
Q

Genotype difference between persons

A

*They have different alleles at some particular location

43
Q

Quantitative genetics

A

Twin research

44
Q

Molecular genetics/genomics

A

attempt to relate differences in particular gene locations to other measurable differences among person

45
Q

Genes

A

specific DNA sequences in specific locations of chromosomes

46
Q

Candidate gene strategy

A
  • Identifying genes with clear relevance to normal personality
  • particular gene locations were examined selectively, based on evidence linking those genes to particular biological processes, as well as theoretical reasoning linking those biological processes to personality.
47
Q

DRD4

A
  • receptors for dopamine in the brain
  • Has several alleles, one longer than the others
  • People with the long allele have high scores on personality scales that relate to novelty seeking
48
Q

DRD2

A
  • dopamine function

* Fun seeking

49
Q

Dopamine

A

reward pursuit

50
Q

5HTTLPR

A
  • serotonin
  • Short allele of that gene -> high scores on neuroticism and low scores on agreeableness, impulsivity and aggressiveness
  • More about impulse vs. constraint than about neuroticism per se
51
Q

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS)

A
  • Most genetic influences on behavior will involve small contributions from many genes
  • Single-gene discoveries- hard to replicate
  • Looks at the entire genome, instead of just isolated gene, and measures it to calculate variance in personality
  • the entire genome is examined for any and all differences that relate to an outcome of interest
  • Huge number of research participants
  • Costly
52
Q

Selection

A

*one allele is more likely to show up in the next generation because it helped with survival or reproduction, or is less likely to show up because it interfered with survival or reproduction

53
Q

Directional selection

A
  • a shift toward a higher a shift toward a higher proportion of the adaptive allele in the population’s next generation
  • If it goes on long enough, directional selection can even eliminate individual differences
  • A large proportion of the next generation has the adaptive one -> characteristic can become universal in population
  • Many characteristics influence survival
54
Q

Stabilizing selection

A
  • maintains genetic variability
  • Occurs when an intermediate value of a characteristic is more adaptive than the value at either extreme
  • Intermediate values reflect combinations of alleles, rather than specific alleles, and probably involve multiple genes
  • Whether a value is adaptive depends on the context
  • A value that’s useful in one environment is not just useless-but fatal- in another
  • Genetic variability in the population is necessary for the population to survive in a world that changes
55
Q

Sociobiology

A
  • study of the biological basis of social behavior
  • Assumes all patterns of behavior survived because they conferred an adaptive advantage
  • Many or perhaps all forms of social interaction are products of evolution
  • The patterns were retained genetically because at some point in prehistory they conferred an adaptive advantage.
  • How behavior patterns might get built in
56
Q

Altruism

A

*acting for the welfare of others
*Biological disadvantage
Prevent genes from being passed on to the next generation
*Gene pool over population
-If one group in a population survives, prospers, and reproduces at a high rate, its genes move onward into subsequent generations more than other groups’ genes

57
Q

Inclusive fitness

A

your genes are helped into the next generation by anything that helps your part of the gene pool reproduce

58
Q

Kin selection

A
  • if an extremely altruistic act (die) saves a great many of your relatives, it helps aspects of your genetic makeup be passed on because your relatives resemble you genetically
  • Be more altruistic toward those in their kinship group than strangers
  • Empathic concern for others
  • Emotional closeness
  • Cooperation
59
Q

Reciprocal altruism

A

one person helps the other in the expectation that the help will be returned

60
Q

Genetic similarity theory

A
  • Rushton
  • A gene “survives” by any action that brings about reproduction of any organism in which copies of the gene exist.
  • genetic similarity has an influence on who attracts you
  • More likely to be sexually active with people who share our genetic markers
  • By making you attracted to someone with genes like yours, your genes increase the odds that genes like themselves will be copied (from one parent or the other or both) into a new person, surviving into the next generation.
  • People also tend to form friendships with others who are genetically similar to them.
61
Q

Possibility to detect genetic similarity in others

A
  • Attraction: we like others who resemble our family members
  • Smell
  • Familiarity: culture, facial and body features
62
Q

Assortative mating

A
  • people choose mates on the basis of particular characteristics
  • Often, the features that influence mate selection are similarities to the self.
63
Q

Trivers (1972)

A
  • males and females evolved different strategies for attracting mates based on their roles in reproduction
64
Q

Females in mate selection in general

A
  • greater investment in offspring than males
  • Women tend to hold back from mating until they identify the best available male
  • Best: quality of genetic contribution, parental care, and material support for the mate and offspring
  • View men as success objects
  • Choosier about mates
65
Q

Males in mate selection in general

A
  • maximize sexual opportunities, copulating as often as possible.
  • Seeking partners who are available and fertile
  • View women as sex objects
66
Q

David Buss

A

*Examined mate selection from 37 cultures around the world.

67
Q

Males mate selection according to Buss

A

*Cues of reproductive capacity
*Prefer young and attractive women
*More threatened by sexual cheating
*More interested in casual sex
*want more sexual variety
*are more easily turned on by visual erotica
*Men’s commitment to their relationship is shaken by exposure to a very attractive woman
*Men’s confidence in their own value as a mate is shaken by exposure to a very dominant man.
*Men overinterpret women’s smiles and touches as implying sexual interest
*it’s evolutionarily important to be concerned about paternity (support own children, not someone else’s)
spending a lot of money and giving in to their mates’wishes.

68
Q

Females mate selection according to Buss

A
  • Cues indicating resources, dominance aand high status
  • Prefer older men
  • whereas women’s commitment is shaken by exposure to a very dominant man.
  • Women’s confidence in their value as a mate is shaken by exposure to a very attractive woman.
  • women are overly conservative in judging men’s commitment in relationships that are forming.
  • whether the man will continue to support her and her children
  • More threatened by emotional cheating
  • make themselves look extra attractive and let others know their mate is already taken.
69
Q

Young male syndrome

A

*sexual selection pressures in the competition for mates
*an effect of evolutionary pressures from long ago and partly a response to situations that elicit the pattern
*When current situations predict reproductive failure
Unemployed or a poor candidate as a mate
Violence, killing (homicide)
Weapons

70
Q

Evolutionary differences in style & communication in gender

A
  • Men: individualistic, dominance-oriented, problem-solving approach
  • Women: having an inclusive, sharing, communal approach
  • Misunderstanding between men and women
71
Q

Similarities in style & communication in gender

A

Both genders are looking for partners who have a good sense of humor and a pleasing personality, who are agreeable and emotionally stable, intelligent, and kind and loving.
Prefer partners whose faces are symmetrical

72
Q

Social Constructionist Theories of Gender Differences

A
  • Sex is an arbitrary, “artificial distinction”
  • Mead’s (1935) well-known conclusion from her observations of behavior in three societies was that many, if not all, of the personality traits which we have called masculine or feminine are as lightly linked to sex as are the clothing, the manners, and the form of head-dress that a society at a given period assigns to either sex
  • Gender is constructed within cultures in response to the particulars of the local situations and histories
73
Q

Biosocial Theories of gender differences

A
  • Alice Eagly: Social Role Theory
  • Attributes current sex differences to the labor division between men and women
  • Emphasizes the social component of sex differences- operates around the idea of correspondence inference, which is the tendency to ascribe a person’s behavior to her or his disposition or personality and to underestimate the extend to which situational factors elicited
  • Men and women were constrained to certain roles in the work force and then assumed to embody the psychological characteristics of those roles without exception
74
Q

Concordance

A

similarity of diagnosis

75
Q

Genes and problem behavior

A
  • Compared to DZ twins, MZ twins show higher concordance rates of:
  • Schizophrenia (50% among MZ, 9% among DZ)
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Alcoholism
  • Antisocial behavior/adult crime
  • Genetic contributions may be strong, they are in no way absolute
  • GXE interactions
76
Q

Biological evolution Barash (1986)

A
  • prepared us to live in a world very different from the one we live in now
  • very slow process that occurs over millennia
77
Q

Cultural evolution

A
  • has raced far ahead, and biological evolution can’t keep up.
  • much faster

Psychology 303 Personality (13 decks)

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