Heredity and Environment Unit3

 People argue about whether human behavior is instinctive (heredity) or learned (environment)  Heredity – transmission of characteristics from parents to the offspring  How much do you learn and how much is just inborn?  Inherited factors and environmental conditions always act together in complicated ways

Question of Nature vs. Nurture  Nature refers to the characteristics people inherit, their biological makeup  Nurture refers to the environmental factors, such as family, culture, education, and individual experiences  Sir Francis Galton became one of the first to stress the importance of nature; published book in 1869 Hereditary Genius which analyzed families  He concluded that that success ran in families and concluded heredity was the cause  John Watson stressed the importance of environment

Genes and Behavior  Genes are the basic units of heredity  Genes affect behavior through their role in building and modifying the physical structures of the body  Those structures interact with the environment and produce behavior

Twin Studies  Using page , take notes over the studies that have been done with twins  How does Nature vs. Nurture play a role in the studies  On page 176 do questions 1, 2, 3, 4