Chapter 9 - Biological Foundations of Personality Flashcards
What is the fundamental hypothesis?
If traits “part of us”, then good chance they are part biologically based and heritable, linked to evolution
What is temperament?
Biologically based individual difference in emotional and motivational tendencies
What are the 3 categories Thomas and Chess found through their longitudinal study?
Easy babies
Difficult babies
Slow-to-warm-up babies
What are the 3 categories that Buss and Plomin found through their longitudinal study?
Emotionality
Activity
Sociability
What are Kagan’s 2 profiles?
Inhibited and uninhibited
What do Kagan’s profiles mean?
Infants inherit differences in biological functioning, leading to more/less reactive novelty that appear stable throughout life
What is the era noted as most human evolution?
Pleistocene
Humans adapted to physical and social environments through…
Physical and cognitve adaptation
What are the 3 parts that evolved in humans?
Nervous system
Neurotransmitters
Social behaviours favouring survival
What are the nervous systems that evolved in humans?
Limbic (emotions) and frontal lobes (memories, judgements)
What is the neurochemistry that evolved in humans?
Neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin)
What are the implications of evolutionary selection?
Favour reproductive success
Some traits outlived usefulness
Domain specific
Information-processing to solve different problems
People look for mates with _________ and/or _________ similarity as well as _____________.
Genotypic; phenotypic; sexual attractiveness
Women tend to choose men based on __________ and men tend to choose women based on __________.
Resourcefulness; reproductive capacities
Two main conflict points of mating strategies are…
Aggressive male competition and jealousy
Men tend to get jealous based on _________ tendencies and women tend to get jealous based on _________ tendencies.
Sexual; emotional
What is the ultimate goal of behavioural genetics?
Identify heritability of behavioural characteristics
The 3 methods/studies to determine heritability are…
Selective breeding studies
Twin studies
Adoptee studies
Many complex human behaviours are ________ and _________.
Polygenic; multifactorial
3 important studies of behavioural genetics are…
Loehlin studies of twins and adoptees
Swedish adoption/twin study of aging (SATSA)
Minnesota study of twins reared apart
__________ has biological roots, with important involvement of the ________ and _________.
Aggressiveness
Temporal lobes; limbic system (amygdala)
What is sensation seeking?
Seeking varied, complex, intense sensations and tendency to take physical and social risks
Sensation seeking depends on a person’s ___________ and covaries with _______ and ________.
Arousability; sociability; impulsivity
What is the parental investment theory?
Biological differences between sexes causes women to invest more in parenting
What are the 4 types of sensation seeking as stated by Zuckerman?
Thrill and adventure
Experience
Disinhibition
Boredom
_________ environments make siblings more alike whereas _________ environments create individual differences.
Shared; unshared
Parents react ________ to each child, hence the emergence of individual characteristics
Differently
What are the 3 nature-nurture interactions?
Same environment, different effects
Different genetics, different responses
Different genetics, different environments
Genes can be __________ depending on environmental conditions by biochemical process known as _______
Turned on and off; methylation
What is plasticity?
Change of biology as result of behavioural experiences
What are the categories of the three-dimensional temperament model and what do they stand for?
NE (negative emotionality)
PE (positive emotionality)
DvC (disinhibition vs. constraint)
