Is behavior learned? It is inborn? What of aggression, intelligence, and madness? There is a crucial relationship between the behavior of humans toward their own kind and the view of life they hold. Interest in behavioral genetics depends on wanting to know why people differ. According to Jack R. Vale, in Genes, Environment, and Behavior, recognition of the importance of hereditary influence on behavior represents one of the most dramatic changes in the social and behavioral sciences during the past two decades. A shift began toward the more balanced contemporary view that recognizes genetic as well as environmental influences on behavior. Behavioral genetics lies in its theory and methods, which consider both genetic and environmental sources of behavioral differences among individuals. Behavioral genetics is simply the intersection between genetics and the behavioral sciences.
Behavior is a phenotype that is, an observable characteristic we can measure. On the other hand, behavior is not just another phenotype. According to Robert Plomin in Behavioral Genetics, “Because behavior involves the action of the whole organism rather than the action of a single molecule, a single cell, or a single organ, behavior is the most complex phenomenon that can be studied genetically. Unlike some physical characteristics, behavior is dynamic, changing in response to the environment indeed, behavior is at the cutting edge of evolution text, because its focus is on the complexity of behavioral phenotypes”(2).
Obviously, there can be no behavior without both an organism and an environment. For a particular behavior, what causes differences among individuals? For example, what causes individual differences in c...
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...al; Human Studies. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970. Print.
Eaves, Lindon J., Judy L. Silberg, Joanne M. Meyer, Hermine H. Maes, Emily Simonoff, Andrew Pickles, Michael Rutter, Chandra A. Reynolds, Andrew C. Heath, Kimberly R. Truett, Michael C. Neale, Marilyn T. Erikson, Rolf Loeber, and John K. Hewitt. "Genetics and Developmental Psychopathology: 2. The Main Effects of Genes and Environment on Behavioral Problems in the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development." Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 38.8 (1997): 965-80. Print.
Plomin, Robert, J. C. DeFries, and G. E. McClearn. Behavioral Genetics: a Primer. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1990. Print.
Rothstein, Carson. Behavioral Genetics. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1999. Print.
Vale, Jack R. Genes, Environment, and Behavior: an Interactionist Approach. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. Print.
Wong, R.Y., and Hofmann H.A. 2010. Behavioral Genomics: An Organismic Perspective. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, in press.
Today, realising that genes and environment cooperate and interact synergistically, traditional dichotomy of nature vs. nurture is commonly seen as a false dichotomy. Especially operant conditioning, i.e. the learning of the consequences of one's own behavior can lead to positive feedback loops between genetic predispositions and behavioral consequences that render the question as to cause and effect nonsensical. Positive feedback has the inherent tendency to exponentially amplify any initial small differences. For example, an at birth negligible difference between two brothers in a gene affecting IQ to a small percentage, may lead to one discovering a book the will spark his interest in reading, while the other never gets to see that book. One becomes an avid reader who loves intellectual challenges while the other never finds a real interest in books, but hangs out with his friends more often. Eventually, the reading brother may end up with highly different IQ scores in standardized tests, simply because the book loving brother has had more opportunities to train his brain. Had both brother received identical environmental input, their IQ scores would hardly differ.
of the biology of behavior in vague terms. The effect of a drug, and the
Raine, A. (2008). From genes to brain to antisocial behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 323-329.
4) Ettinger, R. H. "CHAPTER 3." Psychology: The Science of Behavior. 4TH ed. Redding, CA: BVT Pub., 2009. 91. Print.
... are determined by the stimuli in the environment we are in. Behaviourists believe that all behaviour is learned and in turn can be unlearned by pinpointing the stimulus which is provoking the behaviour and changing the individuals learned response towards it.
Steen, R. Grant. DNA and Destiny: Nurture and Nature in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum Press, 1996.
Studies have proven that no human being is born with knowledge or skills; however, every individual’s has a learned behavior that is either influenced or genetic inherited. Therefore, every individual born into a social and cultural environment are more likely to be effected by, family members, other social groups, religion, as well as languages. Most research psychologists study the genetic inheritance of an individual’s behavior while others focus on an individual’s development stage. However, during the process of psychological research, psychologists also focus on examining the influence that a community can have on one social behavior.
Not at all. Brains and genetics don’t determine behavior – but they do set the stage. The real culprit turns out to be childhood
Robbins, S., Millett, B., Walter-Marsh, T. (2004) Organsiational Behaviour 4th Edition. Pearson, New South Wales.
Tuvblad, C., Grann, M., & Lichtenstein, P. (2006). Heritability for adolescent antisocial behaviour differs with socioeconomic status: Gene-environment interaction. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 734-743. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01552.x
There are many intriguing branches of psychology, but behaviorism captured many aspiring psychologists and young minds in the 1920s and 1930, and has been the dominant orientation since the mid 30s. Behaviorism was the radical revision of the method of psychological research. Consciousness was not accepted at the time and behaviorism called for the ban of introspection. Behaviorism is a branch of psychology that started with John B. Watson’s “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it.” Even though considered innate, researching this topic will show behavior is learned more by environmental factors through modeling and observing. The founder, Watson, created classical conditioning, and later B.F. Skinner contributed with operant conditioning. Watson’s evidence was his most famous experiment, the “Little Albert Experiment.”
Throughout our lives we have all been influenced by our environment and other outside forces. Our environment may change the way we think, act and behave in life. Since we are all products of our environment, it comes to no surprise that we, as humans, tend to behave in a society the same way others around us behave but at the same time we strive to find who we really are (Schaefer 73). Since birth, humans have always analyzed the world around them. With each day that passes, humans take in more and more information from the outside world. The information which humans obtain through their environment subconsciously influences the decisions people make throughout their daily life (Neubauer 16). On the other hand, our genetics also play a vital role in determining what type of person we are and what will we become.
Some factors that are explored in studies involves the genetics in a person, how parents treat their children, influences peers have and the situations that a person may experience throughout their childhood and adult life. There is a possible connection between the feelings of anxiety, aggression and fear with a genetic makeup in a person’s body (Huff, 2004). Research has even shown that if an individual was abuse, whether physical or verbally they are at risk for developing a personality disorder as well (Huff, 2004). Another interesting study conducted by Robert Krueger, PhD, exploring the influences that can contribute to the development of a personality disorder, looks at studying personality traits within identical twins who did not grow up together. In the study, it appeared that genetics contributed more to a person personality trait then the environment they were in. Krueger opinion was that “The predominant reason normal and abnormal personality are linked to each other is because they are linked to the same underlying genetic mechanisms” (Huff,
The distinction between nature versus nurture or even environment versus heredity leads to the question of: does the direct environment or the nature surrounding an adolescent directly influence acts of delinquency, later progressing further into more radical crimes such as murder or psychotic manifestation, or is it directly linked to the hereditary traits and genes passed down from that individual adolescent’s biological parents? To answer this question one must first understand the difference between nature, nurture, environment, and heredity. Nurture, broken down further into environment, is defined as various external or environmental factors one is exposed to which can be more specifically broken down into social and physical aspects. Nature, itself broken down into heredity, is defined as the genetics and the individual characteristics in one’s personality or even human nature.