Chapter 9

The Inheritance of
Personality: Behavioral
Genetics and
Evolutionary Psychology
 Objectives
• Discuss two biologically based approaches to
how personality might be inherited
– Behavioral genetics & Evolutionary psychology
• Discuss how these approaches can be
combined with each other and with other
approaches
 Behavioral Genetics
• Addresses how personality traits that differ
among individuals are passed from parent to
child and shared by biological relatives
• Examines how genes influence broad patterns
of behavior (i.e., personality traits)
• Controversy from associations with eugenics
and cloning
 Behavioral Genetics:
Calculating Heritability
• To examine how phenotypes may be
attributed to variation in genotypes
• Compare similarity in personality between
people who are and are not related and
people who are related to different degrees
– Monozygotic (MZ) versus dizygotic (DZ) twins
– Assumption : traits and behaviors influenced by
genes should be more similar among more closely
related people
 Behavioral Genetics:
Calculating Heritability
• Heritability coefficient : percentage of the
variance of a trait in the population that can be
attributed to variance in genes
 Behavioral Genetics:
Calculating Heritabilities
• Heritability coefficients from twin studies ≈ .40
• Heritability coefficients from non-twin studies
≈ .20
• Difference suggests that the effects of genes
are interactive and multiplicative
 Behavior Genetics:
What Heritability Tells You
• Genes matter
• Insight into the effects of the environment on
personality development
– Shared family environment does not seem to
matter very much!
– Are you more similar or different to your
sibling(s)?
– Parenting styles at the polar ends mainly affect
behavior
 Behavior Genetics:
Gene-Environment Interactions
• Genes are not causal -> they only provide
design
• There must be an environment in order for
there to be behavior
• Environments can affect heritabilities
• Genetic expression and social environment
• Choice of environments (niche picking)
• People can react differently to the same
environment (genetic predisposition)
Theoretical Model of the Sources
of Neuroticism
 Behavior Genetics
• Epigenetics: experience affects biology
– Dutch hunger winter
• The future
– Work in progress
– Genes have important influences on personality
– Researchers are working to find out which genes
are dependably associated with personality
– The big picture will be complicated
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology
• Addresses how patterns of behavior that
characterize all humans may have originated
in the survival value of these characteristics
• Evolution and behavior
– Assumption : behavioral patterns developed because
they were necessary for survival in evolutionary
history; characteristics with more survival value are
more likely to appear in subsequent generations.
– Identify common behavior patterns and then
determine how the behavior was adaptive
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Aggression
– increase protection, can lead to dominance in a social
group and higher status; but also has negative
outcomes such as fighting and war
• Altruism
– may increase inclusive fitness by helping and
protecting others
• Self-esteem: sociometer theory
– reflection of degree of acceptance by others
• Depression
– pain signals something is wrong
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Mating behavior
– Mate selection - what one looks for in the
opposite sex
– Mating strategies - how one handles heterosexual
relationships
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Mating behavior: Attraction
– Men place higher value on physical attractiveness
and prefer younger mates
– Women place higher value on economic security
and prefer older mates
– Both want the highest likelihood of healthy
offspring who will survive and reproduce
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Mating behavior: Attraction
– Some complications
• Women who are too thin cannot bear children
• Attraction is influenced by more than physical
characteristics (Buss, 1989)
• Culture matters
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Mating behavior: Strategies
– Differences between men and women
• Explained in terms of reproductive success
– Some similarities
© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Mating behavior: Sociosexuality
– willingness to engage in sexual relations in the
absence of a serious relationship
– High levels (less restricted): especially interested
in physical attractiveness and social visibility of
potential partners
– Low levels (more restricted): more interested in
personal qualities and potential to be good
parents
– STM and LTM
Sociosexuality and Personality
 Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Evolution and Behavior
• Mating behavior: Jealousy
– Gender difference in the experience of jealousy

“Think of a serious committed relationship that you

have had in the past, that you currently have, or
that you would like to have. Imagine that the person
with whom you’ve become seriously involved
became interested in someone else. What would
distress or upset you?”
 Mating Behavior
• Answer only one
– (a) Imagining your partner forming a deep
emotional attachment to that person
– (b) Imagining your partner enjoying passionate
sexual intercourse with that person
 Mating Behavior
• What would upset you more?
– (a) Imagining your partner trying different sexual
positions with that other person
– (b) Imagining your partner falling in love with that
other person
 Mating Behavior
• Sexy son hypothesis
– explains an alternative mating strategy for women
– mating with an attractive but unstable male will
produce sexier sons who will be more likely to
reproduce
– Evidence?
• Women report more interest in having sex with
someone other than their primary partner when the
“other man” is significantly more attractive, and when
they are near ovulation
Evolutionary Personality Psychology:
Individual Differences
• Focus has been on general human nature
• Adaptation
– Diversity is necessary for adaptation
• Accounting for individual differences
– Behavioral patterns evolved as reactions to
particular environmental experiences
– Several possible behavioral strategies evolved
• Human nature is flexible
 Will Biology Replace Psychology?
• Implication that personality is rooted in
biology
• Biological reductionism
• We do not know enough about biology
• Biology leaves out most of psychology and
does not ask many important psychological
questions