genetic factors A01

Question 1

what are genetics?

Answer 1

inherited factors that make certain people more prone to mental disorders

Question 2

for the biological explanations of schizophrenia, what is one possible cause of schizophrenia?

Answer 2

heredity/genetics

Question 3

schizophrenia tends to run in blood-related families…. true or false?

Answer 3

true

Question 4

name one psychologist who developed a family study for genetic factors in sz?

Answer 4

Gottesman

Question 5

explain Gottesman’s study

Answer 5

he found that children with two sz parents have a concordance rate of 46% and children with one sz parent as 13%

Question 6

what did Gottesman find through his study?

Answer 6

he found that sz is more common among biological relatives of a person with sz. so, the closer in relatedness e.g mother and daughter, the greater the risk of developing sz.

Question 7

what does a concordance rate mean?

Answer 7

the liklihood of something

Question 8

who conducted a twin study for biological explanations of schizophrenia?

Answer 8

Joseph

Question 9

what does monozygotic mean?

Answer 9

genetically identical

Question 10

define dizygotic

Answer 10

twins who share only half their genes.

Question 11

what was the researcher’s hypothesis for twin studies?

Answer 11

monozygotic twins are more concordant than dizygotic twins.

Question 12

what did this hypothesis suggest?

Answer 12

the greater similarity between them is due to genetic factors.

Question 13

what did Joseph find?

Answer 13

he found that the concordance rate for MZ twins was 40.4% and for DZ twins, it was 7.4%

Question 14

what do these type of studies, similar to Joseph’s show?

Answer 14

they show a support for the genetic explanation as they show a concordance rate for MZ twins much higher than for DZ twins.

Question 15

who conducted adoption studies for the biological explanations of schizophrenia?

Answer 15

Tienari

Question 16

what did Tienari find?

Answer 16

out of 164 adopted children whose mothers had been diagnosed with sz, 11 of them also got a diagnosis for sz compared to just 4of the 197 adopted children whose biological mothers were not diagnosed for sz.

Question 17

what do Tienari’s findings show?

Answer 17

They show that the genetic explanation for schizophrenia is ‘decisively confirmed.’

Question 18

why were adoption studies used to test the genetic explanation for sz?

Answer 18

because there were difficulties in untangling biological and environmental influences among families, so they used families who had been split apart.