Genetics and Psychology: Beyond Heritability
Abstract
The questions whether and how much genetic factors affect psychological dimensions and disorders represent important first steps in understanding the origins of individual differences. Because it is now widely accepted that genetic influences contribute importantly to individual differences throughout psychology, genetic research is moving beyond merely estimating heritability to asking questions about how genetic mechanisms work. We focus on two examples of ways in which genetic research is going beyond heritability. The first is to use genetically sensitive designs to identify specific environmental influences, taking into account two of the most important findings from behavioral genetics: nonshared environment and genotype-environment correlation. The second is to use the new tools of molecular genetics to identify specific genes responsible for the substantial heritability of a variety of behavioral traits.
References
(2001). Genetics of schizophrenia and the new millennium: Progress and pitfalls. American Journal of Human Genetics , 68, 299– 312.
(1968). A reiteration of the direction of effects in socialization. Psychological Review , 75, 81– 95.
(1992). Genetic mediation of the home environment during infancy: A sibling adoption study of the HOME. Developmental Psychology , 28, 1048– 1055.
(1992). Genetic influence on tester-rated infant temperament as assessed by Bayley's Infant Behavior Record: Nonadoptive and adoptive siblings and twins. Developmental Psychology , 28, 40– 47.
(1978). Home observation for measurement of the environment . Little Rock: University of Arkansas.
(2001). An fMRI study of personality influences on brain reactivity to emotional stimuli. Behavioral Neuroscience , 115, 33– 42.
(1992). Using siblings to identify shared and nonshared HOME items. British Journal of Developmental Psychology , 10, 165– 178.
(1993). Genetic influence on family environment: The role of personality. Developmental Psychology , 29, 110– 118.
(2000). Contemporary research in parenting: The case for nature and nurture. American Psychologist , 55, 218– 232.
(1993). Gene dose of apolipoprotein E type 4 allele and the risk of Alzheimer's disease in late onset families. Science , 261, 921– 923.
(1997). Dimensions and disorders of adolescent adjustment: A quantitative genetic analysis of unselected samples and selected extremes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry , 38, 515– 525.
(1990). Separate lives: Why siblings are so different . New York: Basic Books.
(1986). Consistency and change in mothers' behavior toward young siblings. Child Development , 57, 348– 356.
(1918). The correlation between relatives on the supposition of Mendelian inheritance. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , 52, 399– 433.
(1889). Natural inheritance . London: Macmillan.
(1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do . New York: The Free Press.
(1992). Coping with marital transitions: A family systems perspective. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development , 2– 3 Serial No. 227.
(1997). Origins of familial similarity in parenting: A study of twins and adoptive siblings. Developmental Psychology , 33, 1012– 1023.
(1977). Do parents create or respond to differences in twins?. Developmental Psychology , 13, 456– 459.
(1980). Parent-child interaction: The socialization process observed in twin and singleton families . New York: Plenum.
(2000). Abnormal functional activation during a simple word repetition task: A PET study of adult dyslexics. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 12, 753– 762.
(1995). A twin-sibling study of observed parent-adolescent interactions. Child Development , 66, 812– 829.
(1994). Genetics and experience: The interplay between nature and nurture . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(2001). Why are children in the same family so different? Nonshared environment a decade later. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry ,.
(1991). The nature of nurture: Genetic influences on “environmental” measures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 14, 373– 427.
(1994). Behavioral genetic evidence for the importance of nonshared environment. In E.M. Hetherington, D. Reiss, & R. Plomin (Eds.), Separate social worlds of siblings: The impact of nonshared environment on development (pp. 1-31). New Jersey: Erlbaum.
(2000). DNA. Psychological Bulletin , 126, 806– 828.
(2001). Behavioral Genetics (4th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.
(1977). Genotype-environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of human behaviour. Psychological Bulletin , 85, 309– 322.
(1993). Nature, nurture, and psychology . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
(1994). The genetic basis of complex human behaviors. Science , 264, 1733– 1739.
(1998). Child development, molecular genetics, and what to do with genes once they are found. Child Development , 69, 1223– 1242.
(2000). The relationship code: Deciphering genetic and social patterns in adolescent development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(1997). Opportunities for psychiatry from genetic findings. British Journal of Psychiatry , 171, 209– 219.
(1997). Can personality explain genetic influences on life events?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 72, 196– 206.
(1997). Cognitive and temperamental mediators of genetic contributions to the home environment during infancy. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly , 43, 1– 23.
(2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist , 55, 5– 14.
(1996). Born to rebel: Family conflict and radical genius . New York: Pantheon.
(2000). Nonshared environment: A theoretical, methodological, and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin , 126, 78– 108.
(2000). Parents, peer groups, and other socializing influences. Developmental Psychology , 36, 699– 710.
(1997). Environmental predictors of personality differences: A twin and sibling study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 72, 177– 183.
