Controversial Issues Exam 2 Part 2

(Nurture assumtion / Parent trap

• Chain smoking Salems
• marrying, divorcing, and marrying a second time to women with identical names
• drinking Miller Light; vactioning on the same half mile beach in FL
• Appearing virtually identical on IQ and persoanlity tests

• modern approach to nature/nurture. Genes and enviroment constantly interact in complex way determine behavior.
• The older we get the mmore our genes shape our behavior

Are reported in "were they born that way"

Suggest that so long as the parents good enough, one set of parents will be about as good as another an will not have much impact on the overall personality of the child

Most well known researcher on the topic of behavioral inhibition and shyness

• 1. Very behaviorally inhibited children are at very high risk for developing anxiety disorders as adults
• 2. behavioral inhibition has a strong heritable or genetic compenten
• 3. enviroment is also influential

Wrote Controversial book "The Nurture Assumption"

• 1. Parents have less impact on development than do peers and teachers
• 2. Parents dont contribute much more than genes
• 3.Conact lenses, teeth being straightenes, clear skin, excess weight loss, and dressing will do alot more for a struggling child than a hug and reassurance
• Her views are extreme but she has impressive support from David Lykken, Roberts Sapolsky, and others

Lykken, Bouchard, et al

• 1. The child rearing practices of your parents
• 2. The influence of brother, sisters, grandparens, and others
• 3. key life - changing events

• 1. Behavorism has been dominant during the second half of the 20th centtury
• 2. It is difficult to observe visible evidence of genetic and biological causesof behavior
• 3. genetics causes suggest "determinism" and lack of "free will"

Involves pairs of twins, subjects undergo 50hours of extensive testing

develop from a single fertilized egg and share 100% of thier genes

develop from two different fertilized eggs and share about 50% of genes

If trait is hertibale, twins apart should be silimar as twins reared together

the compared correlations for twins apart and twins together pairs and computed a similarity index in the form of a quotient. the closer to one shows twins apart is to twins together

• similarity indices very high .8 to 1.0 range
• show enviroment had negligible impact on shaping personality

• genome accounts for most of the variation
• some things are genetic, some not