Lecture 3

Question 1

What are the 3 main guidelines for the ethical conduct of research?

Answer 1

1. Respect for persons (autonomy/informed consent)
2. Concern for welfare (benefiance/risks and benefits)
3. Justice (P selection)

Question 2

Informed consent

Answer 2

1. Inform in advance all aspects of the research that may influence the decision of participating
2. Ensure autonomy of all participants (abiliti to make one’s own decision about participation)
   - Protect minors, cognitively impaired, disabled; decision to participate is free from coercion

Question 3

Concern for welfare

Answer 3

1. Benefits of participation: education, new skills, treatment, material benefits, betterment of society
2. Consequences of not doing research
3. Risks of participation (physical harm, psychological/emotional harm, social risk)
4. Confidentiality

Question 4

Justice

Answer 4

Treat people fairly and equitably by distributing benefits and burdens of participating in research
- Inclusion or exclusion of specific groups must be scientifically justifiable
- A group that is studied must receive the benefits from the study
- Can’t have one group bear all the burden

Question 5

What is a chromosome and how many does a human being have?

Answer 5

Condensed structure composed of DNA wrapped around histones (46: 23 pairs - one from mom and one from dad)

Question 6

Allele

Answer 6

One of two or more alternative versions from a gene

Question 7

Homozygous

Answer 7

Alleles of a gene in a specific pair are the same

Question 8

Heterozygous

Answer 8

Alleles of a gene in a specific pair are different

Question 9

Dominant and recessive

Answer 9

Dominant: attributes of the dominant allele is the one that is expressed in heterozygote
Recessive: attributes of the recessive are masked in a heterozygote

Question 10

Genotype

Answer 10

Genetic makeup (EE; Ee; ee)

Question 11

Phenotype

Answer 11

Way in which person’s genotype is manifested in observable characteristics

Question 12

What is the difference between monogenic and polygenic inheritance?

Answer 12

Monogenic inheritance: trait/characteristic is determined by one pair of genes
Polygenic inheritance: a trait/characteristic is determined by the combination of more the one pair of genes

Question 13

Heritability

Answer 13

Extent to which genes contribute to differences in a trait among individuals
- Proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to genetic variance
- Ranges from 0 (genes do not contribute at all to phenotypic individual differences) to 1 (genes are the only reason for individual differences)

Question 14

Environmentability

Answer 14

Proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to environmental variance

Question 15

What are the 5 misconceptions of heritability?

Answer 15

1. Heritability applies to.a single individual rather than differences among individuals
2. Heritability tells us whether a trait can be changed by environmental factors (environmental changes can impact everyone in the population, changing the trait, but not heritability)
3. Heritability is a fixed number
4. The effects of genes are really the same for everybody across the whole population
5. Heritability implied destiny, and that high heritability for a behavioural or developmental problem, implies that the only hopw would be to alter genes

Question 16

Reaction range

Answer 16

Extent to which genes set limits to how much a trait can change in a new environment

Question 17

What is the phenotypic effect?

Answer 17

Determined by the interaction between the environment and the organism’s genetic makeup + genetic differences may only be apparent in specific environments

Question 18

What is epigenetics?

Answer 18

Heritable changes in phenotype or gene expression in the absence of changes of DNA, often in response to environment
- Gives the genome a certain flexibility that extends beyond the relatively fixed DNA