1. PSYCHOLOGY (8th Edition) David Myers
PowerPoint Slides
Aneeq Ahmad
Henderson State University
Worth Publishers, © 2006

2. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity Chapter 3

3. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
Behavior Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences
Genes: Our Codes for Life
Twin Studies
Temperament Studies
Heritability
Gene-Environment Interaction
The New Frontier: Molecular Genetics

4. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
Evolutionary Psychology: Understanding Human Nature
Natural Selection
An Evolutionary Explanation of Human Sexuality
Critiquing the Evolutionary Perspective

5. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
Parents and Peers
Parents and Early Experiences
Peer Influence
Cultural Influences
Variations Across Cultures
Culture and the Self

6. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
Cultural Influences
Culture and Child-Rearing
Developmental Similarities Across Groups
Gender Development
Gender Similarities and Differences

7. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
Gender Development
The Nature of Gender
The Nurture of Gender
Reflections on Nature and Nurture

8. Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity
Similarities
Differences
Genes: Same set of chromosomes
Genes: Genetic anomalies may make us different
Biology: Organs and body functions same
Biology: May change during development
Brain: Same brain architecture
Brain: Asymmetry of brain across genders
Behaviors: Speak language
Behavior: Speak different languages
OBJECTIVE 1| Give examples of differences and similarities within the human family.

9. Behavior Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences
Behavior Geneticists study our differences and weigh the relative effects of heredity and environment.
OBJECTIVE 2| Describe the type of questions that interest behavior geneticists.

10. The Nature Argument (is sometimes compelling)
This guy will never be….
This guy!!!
Why does Brad Pitt look the way he does?

11. Genes: Our Biological Blueprint

12. Genes: Our Codes for Life
Chromosomes containing DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are situated in the nucleus of a cell.
OBJECTIVE 3| Define chromosome, DNA, gene, and genome, and describe their relationships.

13. Genes: Our Codes for Life
Segments within DNA consist of genes that make proteins to determine our development.

14. Genome
Genome is the set of complete instructions for making an organism, containing all the genes in that organism. Thus, the human genome makes us human, and the genome for drosophila makes it a common house fly.

15. Twin Biology
Studying the effects of heredity and environment on two sets of twins, identical and fraternal, has come in handy.
OBJECTIVE 4| Explain how identical and fraternal twins differ, and ways that behavior geneticists use twin studies to understand the effects of environment.

16. Twins and Procedures
Behavior geneticists’ effects of shared and unique environments on total or partial genetic makeup.

17. Twin Studies

18. What are the different types of twins?

19. Personality, Intelligence
Separated Twins
A number of studies compared identical twins raised separately from birth, or close thereafter, and found numerous similarities.
Separated Twins
Personality, Intelligence
Abilities, Attitudes
Interests, Fears
Brain Waves, Heart Rate

20. Separated Twins
Critics of separated twin studies note that such similarities can be found between strangers. Researchers point out that differences between fraternal twins are greater than identical twins.
Bob Sacha

22. Adoption Studies
Adoption studies, as opposed to twin studies, suggest that adoptees (who may be biologically unrelated) tend to be different from their adoptive parents and siblings.
OBJECTIVE 5| Cite ways that behavior geneticists use adoption studies to understand the effects of environment and heredity.

23. Adoptive Studies
Adoptive studies strongly point to the simple fact that biologically related children turn out to be different in a family. So investigators ask:
Do siblings have differing experiences?
Do siblings, despite sharing half of their genes, have different combinations of the other half of their genes?
Ultimate question: Does parenting have an effect?

24. Parenting Influences children’s
Parenting does have an effect on biologically related and unrelated children.
Parenting Influences children’s
Attitudes, Values
Manners, Beliefs
Faith, Politics

25. Twin Studies: The results
To summarize the countless amount of studies: twins (especially identical), whether or not they are raised in the same environment are very much alike in many ways.

26. Temperament Studies
Temperament refers to a person’s stable emotional reactivity and intensity. Identical twins express similar temperaments, suggesting heredity predisposes temperament.
OBJECTIVE 6| Discuss how the relative stability of our temperament illustrates the influence of heredity on development.

27. Temperament Studies
A person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.
They remain relatively stable over time.

28. Heritability
Heritability refers to the extent to which the differences among people are attributable to genes.
OBJECTIVE 7| Explain heritablity’s application on individuals and groups, and explain what we mean when we say genes are self-regulating.

29. Heritability
The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes.
It is a mathematical formula.
Mark Twain explains it best using the barrel example.

30. Group Differences
If genetic influences help explain individual diversity in traits, can the same be said about group differences?
Not necessarily. Individual differences in weight and height are heritable and yet nutritional influences have made westerners heavier and taller than their ancestors were a century ago.

31. Nature and Nurture
Some human traits are fixed, such as having two eyes. However, most psychological traits are liable to change with environmental experience.
Genes provide choices for the organism to change its form or traits when environmental variables change. Therefore, genes are pliable or self-regulating.

32. Gene-Environment Interaction
Genes can influence traits which affect responses, and environment can affect gene activity.
A genetic predisposition that makes a child restless and hyperactive evokes an angry response from his parents. A stressful environment can trigger genes to manufacture neurotransmitters leading to depression.
OBJECTIVE 8| Give and example of a genetically influenced trait that can evoke responses in others, and give another example of an environment that can trigger gene activity.

33. Gene-Environment Interaction
Genes and environment affect our traits individually, but more important are their interactive effects.
Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters/Corbis
Rex Features
People respond differently to
Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) than Orlando bloom.

34. The study of the power and limitations of genes on who we are.
Behavior Genetics
The study of the power and limitations of genes on who we are.

35. The New Frontier: Molecular Genetics
Molecular genetics is a branch extension of behavior genetics that asks the question, “Do genes influence behavior?”
OBJECTIVE 9| Identify the potential promise and perils of molecular genetics.

36. Molecular Genetics: Promises and Perils
Molecular geneticists are trying to identify genes that put people at risk for disorders. With this kind of knowledge, parents can decide to abort pregnancies in which the fetus is suspected of having such disorders.
However, this opens up a real concern regarding ethical issues involving such choices.

37. Genetic Influences on Behavior
Nature v.
Nurture
Genetic Influences on Behavior

38. The Nature Argument (is sometimes compelling)
This guy will never be….
This guy!!!
Why does Brad Pitt look the way he does?

39. Genes: Our Biological Blueprint

40. Genes: Their Location and Composition
In the nucleus of every cell we have 46 chromosomes……

41. Except……

42. Chromosome Breakdown
DNA
Chromosomes
Genes
Nucleotides

43. Genetic Similarities
Mrs. Reidel is
98%
99.9%
99.9%

44. Evolutionary Psychology: Explaining Universal Behaviors
Evolutionary psychology is the science that seeks to explain why humans act the way they do.
Evolutionary psychology seeks to reconstruct problems that our ancestors faced in their primitive environments, and the problem-solving mechanisms they created to meet those particular challenges.
From these reconstructed problem-solving adaptations, the science then attempts to establish the common roots of our ancestral behavior, and how those common behavioral roots are manifested today in the widely scattered cultures of the planet.
The goal is to understand human behavior that is universally aimed at the passing of one's genes into the next generation.

45. Evolutionary Psychology: Understanding Human Nature
Molecular genetics studies why we as organisms are distinct.
Evolutionary psychology studies why we as humans are alike. In particular, it studies the evolution of behavior and mind using principles of natural selection.
OBJECTIVE 10| Describe the areas of psychology that interests evolutionary psychologists

46. Natural Selection
Natural selection is an evolutionary process through which adaptive traits are passed on to ongoing generations because these traits help animals survive and reproduce.
OBJECTIVE 11| State the principle of natural selection, and point out some possible effects of natural selection in the development of human characteristics.

47. Natural Selection at Work
1959 Russian Fox story
40 Males, 100 Females- mated- then kept only tamest of bunch.
Mated the tames.
40 years later
New Breed of Fox

48. Evolutionary Psychology at Work
If we wanted to create a whole population of brainy teachers, we could take some teachers like…
Have them mate.
Then have the brainiest offspring mate amongst each other, and for countless generations keep doing the same thing.
After 200 years, what would the population be like or what are the chances that the 40th generation of offspring be brainy.

49. Look at our Behaviors…
Can you answer these questions using evolutionary psychology?
Why do infants fear strangers when they become mobile?
Why are most parents devoted to their children?
Why do we divide people into categories?
Why do we have more phobias about spiders and snakes than electricity and nuclear weapons?
Now, the big one?

50. Human Traits
A number of human traits have been identified as a result of pressures afforded by natural selection.
Why do infants fear strangers when they become mobile?
Why are most parents so passionately devoted to their children?
Why do people fear spiders and snakes and not electricity and guns?

51. How and why do men and women differ sexually?

52. Question (summarized)
Human Sexuality
Gender Differences in Sexuality
Males and females, to a large extent, behave and think similarly. Differences in sexes arise in regards to reproductive behaviors.
Question (summarized)
Male
Female
Casual sex
60%
35%
Sex for affection
25%
48%
Think about sex everyday
54%
19%
OBJECTIVE 12| Identify gender differences in sexuality.

53. Of course, there are other differences….

54. Sexuality and the Evolutionary Psychologist
Casual sex is more accepted by men.
When average men and women randomly ask strangers for sex tonight, 75% of men agreed, almost no women agreed.
WHY?

55. Sperm is Cheap
Eggs are not

56. What do men and women want? (According to Evolutionary Psychology)
Healthy
Young
Waist 1/3 narrower than hips.
Women want:
Wealth
Power
Security

57. Can this change?

58. Mating Preferences
Natural selection has caused males to send their genes into the future by mating with multiple females since males have lower costs involved.
However, females select one mature and caring male because of the higher costs involved with pregnancy and nursing.
OBJECTIVE 13| Describe evolutionary explanations for gender differences in sexuality.

59. Mating Preferences
Males look for youthful appearing females in order to pass their genes into the future. Females, on the other, hand look for maturity, dominance, affluence and boldness in males.
Data based on 37 cultures.

60. Critiquing the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychologists take a behavior and work backward to explain it in terms of natural selection.
Evolutionary psychology proposes genetic determinism and undercuts morality in establishing society.
OBJECTIVE 14| Summarize the criticisms of evolutionary explanations of human behavior, and describe the evolutionary psychologists’ responses to those criticisms.
Where genders are unequal, gender preferences are wide, but when they are closely equal, preferences narrow down.

61. Evolutionary Psychologists Reply
Evolutionary psychologists argue that we need to test behaviors that expound evolutionary principles.
Evolutionary psychologists remind us how we have adapted, but do not dictate how we ought to be.
Males and females are more alike than different, and if we study these differences we can establish their causes.

62. Nature v. Nurture What do you think so far?
Does Nature and Nurture interact and grow off of each other?
Lets find out soon by examining Nurture in detail….

64. NURTURE Environmental Influences on Behavior

65. Types of Environmental Influences
Parents
Prenatal
Experience
Peer Influence
Culture
Gender

66. How Much Credit ( or Blame ) Do Parents Deserve?
You and your siblings grow up in the same environment, are you all the same?
Parents effect your belief systems and values much more than your personality.
Parents take too much credit for success and too much blame for failures.
Extreme environmentalism can be VERY dangerous, why?
Are children clay to be molded by their parents?

67. Lets look at perhaps our first environmental influence….
Prenatal Environment

68. Two Placental Arrangements in Identical Twins

69. Experience and Brain Development
I spend a lot of $$$ sending Sammy to pre-school.
They just play with a lot of toys.
I could use that $$$ for a whole lot of PS2 games.
Is it money well spent?

70. Brain cells is an impoverished environment.

71. Brain cells in an enriched environment.

72. Experience and Brain Development
Early postnatal experiences affect brain development. Rosenzweig et al. (1984) showed that rats raised in enriched environments developed thicker cortices than those in impoverished environment.
OBJECTIVE 16| Describe how experience can modify the brain.

73. What does this mean for humans?
If children from impoverished environments given stimulating infant care, they score better on intelligence tests by age 12 than counterparts.
Use it or lose it

74. A Trained Brain
A well-learned finger-tapping task activates more motor cortex neurons (right) than were active in the same brain before training (left)

75. Perhaps the biggest environmental influence, at least by your age may be….
Peer Influence
I can’t get Sammy to clean up his toys, but when he sees his friends clean up in school, he jumps to it.
“Selection effect” we seek out people with similar interests- that may explain why we seem to conform to our peers.

76. Culture
Behaviors, attitudes, traditions etc… of a large group that have been passed down from one generation to the next.

77. Variation Over Time
Cultures change over time. The rate of this change may be extremely fast. In many Western countries, culture has rapidly changed over the past 40 years or so.
OBJECTIVE 21| Explain why changes in the human gene pool cannot account for culture over time.
This change cannot be attributed to changes in the human gene pool because genes evolve very slowly.

78. Greetings exercise
Cultural Variations
To understand how cultures effect who we are it is important to recognize our cultural norms: an understood rule for acceptable behavior.
Individual v. Collectivistic Cultures
Why is it so hard to identify our own cultural norms?

79. Variations over Time
Different generations of the same culture may also have differing norms.

80. Memes
self-replicating ideas, fashions or innovations passed from person to person.
Budweiser Frogs
Where’s the
Beef Lady.
Toys R Us Theme Song

81. Culture and the Self
If a culture nurtures an individual’s personal identity, it is said to be individualist, but if a group identity is favored then the culture is described as collectivist.
OBJECTIVE 22| Identify some ways a primarily individualist culture differs from a primarily collectivist culture, and compare their effects on personal identity.
Kyodo News

82. Culture and the Self

83. Culture and Child-Rearing
Individualist cultures (European) raise their children as independent individuals whereas collectivist cultures (Asian) raise their children as interdependent.
OBJECTIVE 23| Describe some ways that child-rearing differs in individualist and collectivist cultures.
Jose Luis Palaez, Inc./ Corbis

84. Culture and Child-Rearing
Westernized Cultures
Asian-African Cultures
Responsible for your self
Responsible to group
Follow your conscience
Priority to obedience
Discover your gifts
Be true to family-self
Be true to yourself
Be loyal to your group
Be independent
Be interdependent

85. Developmental Similarities Across Groups
Despite diverse cultural backgrounds, humans are more similar than different in many ways. We share the same genetic profile, life cycle, capacity for language, and biological needs.
OBJECTIVE 24| Describe some ways that humans are similar, despite their cultural differences.
Copyright Steve Reehl

86. Gender Development
Based on genetic makeup, males and females are alike, since the majority of our inherited genes (45 chromosomes are unisex) are similar.
OBJECTIVE 25| List one way males and females are similar, and other ways they differ.
Males and females differ biologically in body fat, muscle, height, onset of puberty, and life expectancy.

87. Biology of Sex
Biological sex is determined by the twenty-third pair of chromosomes. If the pair is XX, a female is produced. If the pair is XY, a male child is produced.
OBJECTIVE 29| Explain how biological sex is determined, and describe the role of sex hormones in biological development and gender differences.

88. Sexual Differentiation
In the mother’s womb, the male fetus is exposed to testosterone (because of the Y chromosome), which leads to the development of male genitalia.
If low levels of testosterone are released in the uterus, the result is a female.

90. Gender We already know the nature differences. XX v XY
But that focuses on SEX:
We are going to discuss GENDER: What is the difference?

91. Gender Differences in Aggression
Men express themselves and behave in more aggressive ways than do women. This aggression gender gap appears in many cultures and at various ages.
OBJECTIVE 26| Summarize gender gap in aggression.
In males, the nature of this aggression is physical.

92. Gender and Social Power
In most societies, men are socially dominant and are perceived as such.
In 2005, men accounted for 84% of the governing parliaments.
OBJECTIVE 27| Describe some gender differences in social power.

93. Gender Differences and Connectedness
Young and old, women form more connections (friendships) with people than do men. Men emphasize freedom and self-reliance.
OBJECTIVE 28| Discuss gender differences in connectedness, or the ability to “tend and befriend.”
Oliver Eltinger/ Zefa/ Corbis
Dex Image/ Getty Images

94. Gender Roles A set of expected behaviors for males and females
List some of your gender roles.
What gender role is she breaking?

95. Changing Attitudes about Gender Roles

96. Gender Identity Our own sense of male or female. Personalized to us
We realize our gender identity through gender-typing: acquiring our gender identity.

97. Two Theories of Gender-typing

98. Gender Roles: Theories
Gender Schema Theory suggests that we learn a cultural “recipe” of how to be a male or a female, which influences our gender- based perceptions and behaviors.
Social Learning Theory proposes that we learn gender behavior like any other behavior—reinforcement, punishment, and observation.

99. Social Learning Theory
Lets use Sammy as an example.

100. Social Learning Theory
I play Baseball.
Sammy imitates my behavior.
I reward Sammy.
Sammy’s Mom
puts on makeup.
I punish Sammy.
Sammy copies her.

101. Gender Schema Theory
Schema: a concept or framework of how we organize information.
Develop schemas for gender.
See the world through the lens of your gender schemas.
Boy’s don’t do this,
that’s for girls.
Yeah, that’s cool!!!!
I want to do that.