Psychology 5137

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Psychology 5-137

• Topic 1
• Introduction Historical Overview

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Nature and Nurture

• A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
• Nurture can never stick On who my pains
• Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost,
• And, as with age, his body uglier grows,
• So his mind cankers.
• Prosperos description of Caliban
• Tempest (Act 4, Scene 1)

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Collins 1999 Shattuck Lecture
1.0 0.3
1.0 1.0 1.0
Risks based on Smith, G.D. et al. (2006). Genetic
epidemiology and public health Hope, hype and
future prospects. The Lancet, 366 1484-1498
Collins, F.S. (1999). Shattuck Lecture Medical
and Societal Consequences of The Human Genome
Project. NEJM, 341 28-36
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Definition

• Behavioral genetics - that area of psychology
  that is concerned with the application of genetic
  methods and research designs to study the nature
  and origins of individual differences in human
  and animal behavior.

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Prescientific Notions ofInheritance

• Selective breeding (10,000 years)
• Greeks
• Aristotle
• Platos ideal society
• Jews
• X-linked inheritance of hemophilia

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PreDarwinian Foundations

• Linneaus (1735)
• Natural Theology
• Erasmus Darwin (18th century)

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PreDarwinian Foundations-cont.

• Jean Lamarck (18th century)
• Charles Lyell (19th century)
• Thomas Malthus (18th century)

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PreDarwinian Foundations-Summary

• Species (Ray, Linneaus)
• Evolution (E. Darwin)
• Adaptation (Lamarck)
• Inheritance (Lamarck)
• Time gradualism (Lyell)
• Competition non-random loss (Malthus)

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Charles Darwin

• H.M.S. Beagle (1831)
• Observations of tortoises and finch in Gallapagos
  Islands
• Alfred Wallace (1858)
• Origin of Species (1859)

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Charles Darwin

• Natural selection (the causal agent behind
  evolutionary change)
• Heritable variation
• Differential reproductive success
• gt changes in the genetic composition of the
  species

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Sir Francis Galton

• Founder of
• Behavioral genetics
• Differential Psychology
• Biometry
• Hereditary Genius (1869)

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Herditary Genius
Rate of Eminence
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Nature-Nurture Debate

• Galton (1907)
• There is no escape from the conclusion that
  nature prevails enormously over nurture when the
  differences in nurture do not exceed what is
  commonly to be found among persons of the same
  rank in society and in the same country.

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Nature-Nurture Debate

• John Stuart Mill (1848)
• Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the
  consideration of the social and moral influences
  on the human mind, the most vulgar is that
  attributing the diversities of human conduct and
  character to inherent original natural
  differences.

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Eugenics Movement

• Eugenics - science that seeks to promote
  genetic/biological improvement of human society
  by influencing who does and does not reproduce.

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Ethel M. Elderton

• Improvement of social conditions will not
  compensate for a bad hereditary influence . . .
  The only way to keep a nation strong mentally and
  physically is to see that each new generation is
  derived chiefly from the fitter members of the
  generation before.

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Gregor Mendel

• First Law -- Law of Segregation -- account for
  the transmission of single characters.
• Second Law -- Law of Independent Assortment --
  account for the joint transmission of two (or
  more) characters.

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Landmarks in Human Genetics

• Bateson (1905) - genetics
• Wilhelm Johansen (1909) - gene, genotype and
  phenotype
• Garrod (1902) - genes control metabolic processes
• Watson Crick (1953) - DNA molecule
• Tjio Levan (1956) - 46 chromosomes
• Recombinant DNA - 1980s
• Human Genome Project 2001
• International HapMap - 2005