Behavioral Genetics

Question 1

What do Genes contain instructions for?

Answer 1

making all the different kinds of proteins you make

Question 2

is the blueprint for a brain conserved across evolution? How do small differences have a big effect?

Answer 2

The blueprint for a brain is highly conserved across evolution, but small differences can have big effects

Question 3

What is a genotype?

Answer 3

• The sequence of letters of your genome
• mostly, but not exclusively, inherited from parents

Question 4

What is a phenotype?

Answer 4

A measurable trait

Question 5

How do genes, phenotypes, and environments interact?

Answer 5

• Genes and phenotypes affect heritability
• genes interact with our environment to determine behavior
• Environment can affect phenotypes, but not our genotypes

Question 6

What is epigenetics?

Answer 6

the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work

Question 7

What is heritability?

Answer 7

How much of a phenotype is inherited, presumably due to genetic factors

Question 8

What do twin studies show about the heritability of phenotypes?

Answer 8

• Phenotypes are more inheritable in identical twins
• Phenotypes still are sometimes inherited in fraternal twins
• means heritability differences are genetic, but not exclusively genetic

Question 9

Are differences in “success” or widely desired behavioral traits heritable (e.g., reading scores)?

Answer 9

No, not inheritable (due to epigenetics)

Question 10

Why can we not make accurate predictions about a phenotype based on genotype?

Answer 10

• Our environment can change our phenotype, but it cannot change our genotype
• genotypes cannot determine our phenotype, and therefore they cannot make predictions as well