PSYC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Novelty Seeking, Twin Study, Agreeableness
6 Jan 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Where does personality come from: personality: consists of people"s characteristic thoughts, emotional responses and behaviors, personality trait: a pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior that is relatively consistent over time and across situations. Traits are dispositions to think, act or feel in predictable ways in certain situations. The results of twin studies and adoption studies suggest that 40-60 percent of personality variation is the product of genetic variation. Parents play an important role in selecting the environments that shape their children"s personalities. Personality characteristics are influenced by multiple genes which interact with the environment to produce general dispositions. It is difficult to identify the influence of specific genes on personality. Some traits, such as novelty seeking, have been linked to a gene associated with dopamine levels and emotional stability has been linked to a gene associated with serotonin levels. Temperaments: general tendencies to feel or act in certain ways.
