PSYC 2600 Lecture Notes - Selective Breeding, Jeffrey Alan Gray

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2600
• Professor: Elizabeth Nisbet

Document Summary

Goals and methods of behavioural genetics: determine the percentage of individual differences in a trait that can be attributed to genetic differences and the percentage that can be attributed to environmental differences, eg. Is the height of an individual due to genetics or environment (diet while growing): determine the ways in which genes and environment interact and correlate. 90% of individual differences has to do with genetics with each other to produce individual differences. (we never say its 100% one or the other) Misconceptions about heritability: the belief that heritability can be applied to an individual, however it can. Selective breeding: the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits: can only occur if a desired trait is heritable; gene can not be passed down if it is not heritable. Selective breeding studies of dogs- identifying the desired trait in a dog and having them mate with another with the same trait: cannot be ethically conducted with humans.