Nature-Nurture

Question 1

what are correlation coefficients?

Answer 1

a standardised way to describe the strength and direction of the relationship between variables

Question 2

small correlation

Answer 2

.15

Question 3

medium correlation

Answer 3

.25

Question 4

large correlation

Answer 4

.35

Question 5

what is intelligence?

Answer 5

an ability to understand complex ideas and adapt to the environment- being able to cope with novel problems

Question 6

what do intelligence tests attempt to measure?

Answer 6

• verbal ability
• non-verbal reasoning
• working memory
• processing speed

Question 7

how can the development of intelligence be described?

Answer 7

discontinuity and stability

Question 8

what is spearman’s ‘positive manifold’?

Answer 8

in large samples, scores within each cognitive domain tend to correlate with each other

Question 9

what did spearman claim correlation in these tasks was evidence of?

Answer 9

general intelligence (g)

Question 10

what did cattell and thorndike claim?

Answer 10

these tests measured various kinds of ability

Question 11

cattell’s two types of intelligence

Answer 11

fluid intelligence and crystallised intelligence

Question 12

fluid intelligence

Answer 12

the ability to work things out with no previous knowledge

Question 13

crystallised intelligence

Answer 13

the established store of knowledge from being exposed to culture and environment

Question 14

what did a meta-analysis of 460 datasets establish?

Answer 14

positive manifold is one of the most replicated findings in psychology

Question 15

what is factor analysis?

Answer 15

a statistical technique developed by spearman to pull out commonalities and differences between the tests

Question 16

what is IQ?

Answer 16

a metric to quantify intelligence, and these tests have a normal distribution

Question 17

what is the mean IQ?

Answer 17

100

Question 18

what is the standard deviation?

Answer 18

15

Question 19

what do intelligence tests show strong levels of?

and what is this evidence of?

Answer 19

test-retest reliability and different IQ tests have strong correlations

evidence of the underlying skill of ‘g’

Question 20

what did deary (2002) find about IQ?

Answer 20

shows strong rank-order stability across the lifespan

Question 21

when does intelligence increase?

Answer 21

from 11-79

Question 22

when did intelligence have a marked decline?

Answer 22

from 87-90

Question 23

when did fluid intelligence see a rapid growth?

Answer 23

during childhood, and a sharp decline upon getting older

a downhill trajectory from 20

Question 24

when does crystallised intelligence see a massive growth?

Answer 24

during childhood, but this remains fairly stable

Question 25

what have twin studies been used for?

Answer 25

to understand the role of genetics and environment on intelligence

Question 26

correlation of MZ and DZ twins on IQ tests

Answer 26

MZ twins found to have a .86 correlation vs .60 for DZ twins suggests there is a strong genetic component to intelligence, as even MZ twins living apart correlate

Question 27

twin studies claim that __% of the variance in intelligence is determined by genetic factors

Answer 27

50%, however they are still unable to explain the specific genes involved in intelligence

Question 28

what did davis and haworth discover about heritability?

Answer 28

heritability of intelligence changes with age, and genetic effects become more significant at later stages of life - this suggests we are less susceptible to environments as we get older

Question 29

what is another explanation of davis and haworth's findings?

Answer 29

it may be that DNA does not change, but rather the relative important of genetic differences for intelligence is changing

Question 30

what are single nucleotide polymorphisms?

Answer 30

a type of genetic variation

Question 31

why is it important to identify specific genomic variants?

Answer 31

it makes it possible to identify whether someone has a certain polymorphism

Question 32

what does research suggest about nucleotide polymorphisms?

Answer 32

that SNPs (individual genes) tend to have very small effects on intelligence this suggests that intelligence is polygenic- looking at many different SNPs working together

Question 33

what is a 'genome-wide polygenic score'?

Answer 33

each individual has one, which consists of counting target alleles

Question 34

what have recent studies found significant associations between?

Answer 34

GPS and intelligence, but this still accounts for roughly 10% of the variance in intelligence being associated with genetic factors

Question 35

twin studies vs SNPs

Answer 35

this suggests that not all SNPs have been identified, or that twin studies have overestimated the genetic influence of intelligence

Question 36

types of environmental influences

Answer 36

biological (nutrition, chemical exposure) social (schooling, family)

Question 37

what can children's IQ be explained by?

Answer 37

range of family factors such as warmth in the home and resources

Question 38

why is it difficult to explain environmental associations?

Answer 38

the connections may not be driven by social causation (social factors), but rather social selection (genetic factors)

Question 39

what meta-analysis supports the idea of social causation over social selection

Answer 39

a meta-analysis of quasi experimental studies looked to see if education reform improved education. IQ increased as years in education increased

Question 40

what can adoption studies be used to look at?

Answer 40

the relative effects of new environment on children's intelligence

Question 41

romanian children adopted away from foster homes had a higher IQ than children who remained in the institutions. what does this suggest?

Answer 41

living with a family environment helped to develop their intelligence and reach their full cognitive potential

Question 42

it is possible that ______ __________ can moderate genetic influence on IQ

Answer 42

shared environments

Question 43

what factors can allow children to live up to their genetic potential?

Answer 43

being in a supportive or higher socioeconomic environment natural tendencies (genetic influences) for intelligence are more fully expressed in nourishing environments

Question 44

what did results find that heritability increased with?

Answer 44

socioeconomic status this can be explained in western europe due to free healthcare and childcare

Question 45

what do shared environments argue against?

Answer 45

the gene-environment dichotomy, by stating that the environment might be able to influence the degree to which genes effect our intelligence