part 1 Flashcards
(18 cards)
What is the nature–nurture issue?
The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today’s science views traits and behaviors as arising from the interaction of nature and nurture.
What is natural selection?
The principle that the inherited traits enabling an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.
What is evolutionary psychology?
The study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection.
What is behavior genetics?
The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.
What is a mutation?
A random error in gene replication that leads to a change.
What is the environment in psychology?
Every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to our experiences of the people and things around us.
What is heredity?
The genetic transfer of characteristics from parents to offspring.
What are genes?
The biochemical units of heredity.
What is a genome?
The complete instructions for making an organism.
What are identical (monozygotic) twins?
Individuals who developed from a single fertilized egg that split in two, creating two genetically identical organisms.
What are fraternal (dizygotic) twins?
Individuals who developed from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than ordinary siblings, but they shared a prenatal environment.
What is interaction in psychology?
The interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity).
What is epigenetics?
The study of the molecular mechanisms by which environments can influence genetic expression (without a DNA change).
What is the nervous system?
The body’s speedy, electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems.
What is the central nervous system (CNS)?
The brain and spinal cord.
What is the peripheral nervous system (PNS)?
The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body.
What are nerves?
Bundled axons that form neural cables connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sensory organs.
What are sensory (afferent) neurons?
Neurons that carry incoming information from the body’s tissues and sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord.
