PSYC 2130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Determinism, Epigenetics, Twin Study
10 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
The inheritance of personality: behavioral genetics and evolutionary theory. The reason biological relatives look alike is because of the genes they share. This field examines the way inherited biological material genes can influence broad patterns of behaviour; aka trait genetics. A pattern of behaviour relevant to more than on situation is, by definition, a personality trait. Eugenics the belief that humanity could and should be improved through selective breeding; sperm banks; cloning the belief that it might be technologically possible to produce a complete duplicate of a human being. Modern behavioural geneticists are quick to isolate themselves from these. Neither eugenics or cloning turned out to be feasible because personality is the result of a complex interaction between an individual"s genes and the environment. The real contribution of behaviour genetics is the way it expands our understanding of the sources of personality to include its bases in both genes and the environment.
