1. Genetics and Behaviour

2. Genetics
The study of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms.

3. Gregor Mendel An Austrian Monk, born in 1822 carried out the first
quantitative studies of inheritance. His subjects the
garden pea. Mendel conducted a variety of experiments
on plant hybridization.
Mendel was looking for some orderly principals underlying
Hybridization. Mendel’s basic discovery was that “factors”
could be passed from parent plants to off-spring. Although
Mendel had no understanding of the chemical processes
taking place, the “factors” he identified were in fact genes.

4. Watson and Crick
In 1953 the basic structure of chromosomes was deciphered by James Watson and Francis Crick (it took almost another 20 years before anyone actually isolated a single gene).

5. The Human Genome Project
Completed in 2003
Helped to “map” many human genes.
Estimates that there are from between 30, 000 to 75,000 different human genes.

6. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each containing thousands of genes.
Reproductive process means that genetic variation possibilities equal about 8.4 million possible combinations from a single set of parents!

7. How it works...
The example of Eye Colour (reductionism at it’s finest).

8. Nature and Nurture
Nativism – an ancient philosophical view that knowledge and behaviour are innate in origin.
Empericism – the philosophical view that all knowledge is based on experience and that behaviour is learned.

9. Critical Thinking
To what extent does genetic inheritance influence behaviour?

10. Is Intelligence Inherited?
Genetics definitely plays a role in intelligence but so does environment.

11. Remember
The interactionist approach? Psychology looks at nature and nurture bi-directionally.

12. Genetics is only part of the picture.
Behavioural Genetics
Attempts to use genetics to explain behaviour.
Twin studies and adoption studies often used.
Many mental health problems thought to have a genetic cause. Many studies widely disputed but not publically recognized.
Genetics is only part of the picture.

13. Behaviour and Genes
There are many indications that complex behaviours have genetic representation,
Unlike the simplified example of eye colour behaviours are likely represented by more than one gene
Behaviour is greatly influenced by environmental factors.

14. Poverty, parenting, nutrition, socialization, gender, culture to name a few

15. Limitations of genetic basis for behaviour
Specific genes for behaviour are unidentified.
Correlational studies of twins both identical and fraternal do not show consistent presentation, ie. Autism study of identicals
High frequency genes that appear in populations, such as alcoholics, also appear in the general population to a comparable extent
Failure to translate genetic discoveries into treatments

16. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/bod y/epigenetics.html

18. Watch
The Nature of Things
“The Down Side of High”