PSYCH356 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Psychopathy, Ovulation, Sensation Seeking

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH356
• Professor: Richard Eibach

Document Summary

Chapter 9 - the inheritance of personality: behavioural genetics and. A pattern of behaviour that is generally consistent across situations is, by definition, a personality trait. Controversial because of the historic association with a couple of notorious ideas. One is eugenics, the belief that humanity could (and should) be improved through selective breeding: cloning (producing a complete duplicate psychological as well as physical human being) Research on genetic bases of behaviour might lead the public think that outcomes such as intelligence and obesity are fi(cid:454)ed i(cid:374) o(cid:374)e"s ge(cid:374)es rather tha(cid:374) (cid:272)ha(cid:374)gea(cid:271)le (cid:271)(cid:455) experience or social circumstances. Perso(cid:374)alit(cid:455) is the result of a (cid:272)o(cid:373)ple(cid:454) i(cid:374)tera(cid:272)tio(cid:374) (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374) a(cid:374) i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual"s ge(cid:374)es a(cid:374)d the environment. To the degree that a trait is influenced by genes, people who are close genetic relatives ought to be more similar on that trait than people who are more distantly related. Mz twins share on average twice as many variable genes as do dz twins.