PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Personal Development

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Christine Mountney

Document Summary

Behavior geneticists study our differences and weigh the relative effects of heredity and environment. Chromosomes containing dna (deoxyribonucleic acid) are situated in the nucleus of a cell. Segments within dna consist of genes that make proteins to determine our development. Genome is the set of complete instructions for making an organism, containing all the genes in that organism. Studying the effects of heredity and environment on two sets of twins, identical and fraternal, has come in handy. Identical: same genetic material and the egg splits in half, so the one set of dna is split between the two and they often share the same placenta. Fraternal: two different sperm fertilize two different eggs at the same time, with two different sacs and two different placentas. Identical twins share a much higher risk of developing similar disease than fraternal. Identical twins more similar on scores of extraversion and neuroticism.