Chapter 6

Genetics and
Personality

1
The Biological Domain
 The biological domain refers to those physical
elements and biological systems within our bodies
that influence or are influenced by our behaviors,
thoughts and feelings.
 (1)Our genetic makeup influences how active we are,
whether we are hot tempered and disagreeable, and
whether we like to be with others or prefer solitude.
 Understanding if and how genetics contribute to
personality.

 Solitude: yalnız
2
The Biological Domain
 (2) Brain and peripheral nervous system where
subtle differences between people might contribute to
personality differences.

 (3)The third biological approach is Charles Darwin’s

theory of evolution. Adaptations that helped members
of the species to survive and reproduce were passed
on as evolved characteristics.

 Subtle: küçük, ince

3
Genetics and Personality
 What is the role of genetics in personality?

 Genome refers to the complete set of genes

that an organism possesses.
 Human genome contains 30,000–80,000 genes
on 23 pairs of chromosomes.
 What role the genes play in the body, mind and
behavior.
 Possess: sahip olmak

4
The Human Genome

 Human Genome Project is designed to

sequence the entire human genome—i.e.,
identify the particular sequence of DNA
molecules in human species.
 But identifying sequence of DNA molecules
does not mean identifying the function of each
molecule.
 Sequence: sıralamak, düzenlemek

5
The Human Genome

 Most genes in a human genome are the same

for all humans.
 Small number of genes are different for
different individuals, including genes that
indirectly code for physical traits and for
personality traits.

6
Controversy About Genes and
Personality

 Behavioral geneticists attempt to determine the

degree to which individual differences in
personality are caused by genetic and
environmental differences.
 The answer is highly controversial.

7
Controversy About Genes and
Personality
 Ideological concerns: Many people worry that
findings from behavioral genetics will be used (or
misused) to support particular political agendas.
 If individual differences in thrill seeking, for
example are caused by specific genes, then does
this mean that we should not hold juvenile
delinquents responsible for stealing cars.

 thrill : heyecanlanmak

8
Controversy About Genes and
Personality
 Concerns about renewed interest in eugenics:
 Eugenics is the notion that we can design the future of the
human species by fostering the reproduction of persons with
certain traits and by discouraging the reproduction of persons
without those traits.
 Many people in society are concerned that findings from genetic
studies might be used to support programs intended to prevent
some individuals from reproducing.
 Modern psychologists who study the genetics of personality
are typically extremely careful in their attempts to educate
others about to use and potential misuse of their findings.
 Foster:teşvik etmek, beslemek

9
Controversy About Genes and
Personality

 Modern behavioral geneticists who study

personality are typically very careful about
addressing implications of work and are
sensitive to ideological concerns.

10
Controversy About Genes and
Personality

 In addition, finding that a personality trait has

a genetic component does not mean the
environment is powerless to modify trait.

11
Goals of Behavioral Genetics
 Goals of genetic researches:
 (1)Determine the percentage of individual
differences in a trait that can be attributed to
genetic differences and percentage that can be
attributed to environmental differences.
 (2)Determine the ways in which genes and
environment interact and correlate with each
other to produce individual differences.

12
Goals of Behavioral Genetics

 (3)Determine precisely where in the

“environment” environmental effects exist—
e.g., parental socialization, different teachers
to which children are.

13
What Is Heritability?
 Heritability is a statistic that refers to the
proportion of observed variance in a group of
individuals that can be accounted for by
genetic variance.

14
What Is Heritability?
 Heritability is:
 Proportion of observed variance in group of
individuals that can be explained or accounted
for by genetic (genotypic) variance,
OR
 Proportion of phenotypic variance that is
attributable to genetic variance.

15
What Is Heritability?
 Genetic (genotypic) variance: individual
differences in the total collection of genes
possessed by each person.
 Phenotypic variance : refers to observed
individual differences, such as in height,
weight or personality.

 possessed : sahip olmak

16
What Is Heritability?

 Environmentality is the proportion of observed

variance in group of individuals attributable to
environmental variance.
 E.g. A heritability of .20 means that the
environmental component is .80.

17
Misconceptions About Heritability

 Heritability CANNOT be applied to a single

individual
 It is meaningful to say that the individual
differences in hight are 90 percent heritable,
but it makes no sense to say, mine height is 90
percent heritable.

18
Misconceptions About Heritability
 Heritability is NOT constant or immutable
 Heritability is a statistics that applies only to a
population at one point in time and in a
particular array of environments.
 If the environment change, heritability can
change.

19
Misconceptions About Heritability
 Heritability is NOT a precise statistic
 Heritability statistics are typically computed using
correlations , which themselves fluctuate from sample
to sample.
 Heritability is best regarded as merely an estimate of
the percentage of phenotypic differences due to
genetic differences.
 It is not precise, does not refer to an individual an is
not eternally fixed.

20
Nature-Nurture Debate Clarified
 Arguments about whether genes or
environments are more important determinants
of personality.
 No such debate at the individual level.
 Genes and environment for one individual are
like flour and egg for one cake, both
ingredients are necessary, but we can not
logically disentangle them to see which is
more important.
Disentangle: karışmış birşeyi açmak
21
Nature-Nurture Debate Clarified
 Influence of genes and of environment is only
relevant for the discussion of group-level
variation
 For a particular population at a given point in
time, we can make sensible statements about
which is more important in accounting for the
differences.

22
Nature-Nurture Debate Clarified
 It is meaningful to say that genetic
differences are
 More important than environmental differences for
weight.
 Genetic and environmental factors are roughly
equal when it comes to height.
 Environmental influences are overwhelmingly
important for mate preferences.

23
Behavioral Genetics Methods
 Behavioral genetics have developed an array
of methods for teasing apart the contributions
of genes and environments are causes of
individual differences.
 Selective Breeding with animals—Studies of Humans’ Best
Friend
 Family Studies
 Twin Studies
 Adoption Studies
 Array: dizi; teasing apart : paramparça etmek

24
Selective Breeding
 Selective breeding (also called artificial
selection and unnatural selection) is the
process of breeding plants and animals for
particular traits.
 Can only occur if a desired trait is heritable.
 There are some selective breeding studies of
dogs in personality characteristics.
 Some time it can not be ethically conducted
with humans.
25
Family Studies
 Family studies correlates the degree of genetic
overlap among family members with the
degree of similarity in personality trait.
 If a trait is highly heritable, family members
with greater genetic relatedness should be
more similar to one another on the trait than
family members who are less closely
genetically related.

26
Family Studies
 Parents are not related to each other genetically.
 Each parent shares 50 percent of his/her genes
with each of the children.
 Siblings share 50 percent of their genes on
average.
 Grandparents and grandchildren share 25 percent
of their genes as do uncles, aunts with their nieces
and nephews.

27
Family Studies
 If a personality characteristic is highly heritable,
then family members with greater genetic
relatedness should be more similar to each other
than are family members with less genetic
relatedness.

28
Family Studies

 Problem: Members of a family who share the

same genes also usually share the same
environment—confounds genetic with
environmental influences.
 Thus, family studies are never definitive.

29
Twin Studies

 Twin studies estimate heritability by gauging

whether identical (monozygotic or MZ) twins,
who share 100 percent of genes, are more
similar than fraternal (dizygotic or DZ) twins,
who share only 50 percent of genes.

 gauging : ayarlama, ölçme

30
Twin Studies

 If MZ twins are more similar than DZ twins,

this provides evidence of heritability
 Calculating heritability have many formulas,
simple one: Two times difference between
correlation (“r”) for MZ twins and DZ twins,
or 2 (rmz – rdz)

31
Twin Studies

 For height, identical twins are correlated .93,

whereas fraternal twins are correlated only .48.
Heritability estimate: heritability of height =
2(.93-.48) =.90
 According to this formula, height is 90 percent
heritable and 10 percent environmental.

Activity Handout 6-1 32

Twin Studies
 The assumption of the twins method
 Equal environments assumption: the
environments experienced by identical twins
are no more similar to each other than are
the environments experienced by fraternal
twins.

Handout Activity 6-2 33

Adoption Studies
 Research studies which attempt to tease apart
the genetic and environmental (“nature” and
“nurture”) components of a behavior or
disorder by comparing the outcomes of
genetically identical twins who have been
raised in separate homes.
 Adoption studies may be the most powerful
behavioral genetic method available.

34
Adoption Studies
 Positive correlations on traits between adopted
children and adoptive parents provide
evidence of environmental influence.
 Positive correlations between adopted children
and genetic parents provide evidence of
genetic influence.

35
Adoption Studies

 Adoption studies are powerful because they

get around the equal environments
assumption.
 Assumption that adopted children and their
adoptive and genetic parents are representative
of the general population—questionable.

36
Adoption Studies

 Have problem of selective placement of

adopted children.
 In order to eliminate this problem it is possible
to design that combines strengths of twin and
adoption studies = twins reared apart

37
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 38
Major Findings from Behavioral
Genetic Research

 We will study in three different topics:

 Personality Traits
 Attitudes and Preferences

 Drinking and Smoking

39
Personality Traits

 The most commonly studied personality traits in behavioral genetics

designs are Extraversion and Neuroticism. It was found a substantial
heritability for both traits.
 The correlations for the two correlations yields a heritability of .60.
 The findings of Extraversion and Neuroticism were from adaption studies
suggest somewhat lower heritability.
 Heritability estimates based on comparisons of adoptees and their
biological parents of about 40 percent for extraversion and about 30
percent for Neuroticism.

 Substantial: önemli

40
Personality Traits
 Individual differences in activity level have also been subjected to
behavioral genetic analysis.
 Activity level showed a heritability of .40 suggesting that a moderate
proportion of the individual differences in motor energy are due to genetic
differences.
 In study of chimpanzees, the heritability of dominance and well-being as
indexed by trained observer judgements. Individual differences in
chimpanzee well-being showed moderate heritability of .40, whereas
dominance showed an even stronger heritability of .66.
 The importance of genes in influencing personality may not be restricted to
humans but instead may extend to other primates.

41
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 42
Personality Traits

 Summaries of behavioral genetic data yield

heritability estimates for major personality
traits (extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to
experience) of about 20-45 percent.

43
Personality Traits
 Sexual orientation
 Controversial and developing area;
 The real rate of genetic contribution to sexual orientation is lower than
previously thought.
 Current evidence suggests that genes provide modest and indirect
influence (via childhood gender nonconformity) on adult sexual
orientation
 Childhood gender nonconformity show significant heritability for both
men (50 percent heritability)and women (37 percent heritability).
 The researches studies the individuals diagnosed with Gender Identity
Disorder showed that there is 62 percent heritability.
 GID: persistent psychological discomfort with one’s biological sex, cross gender
identification.

44
Attitudes and Preferences
 Stable attitudes are generally regarded to be part of personality; they show
wide individual differences and they linked with actual behavior.
 Studies showed wide variance in heritability of attitudes.
 Some attitudes (e.g., traditionalism) show high heritability (about .60),
whereas others show low or no heritability (e.g., beliefs in God).
 Findings suggest that genes have an increasingly important role in
religiousness as people move from adolescence into adulthood. 12 percent
during adolescence, 33 percent in adulthood and during adulthood
religiousness increased 44 percent.
 Not clear why only some attitudes appear to be heritable.

45
Drinking and Smoking

 Drinking and smoking are often regarded as behavioral manifestations of

personality traits such as sensation seeking, extraversion, neuroticism.
 Drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes are stable over time.
 Individual differences in drinking and smoking habits also show evidence
of heritability.
 Heritability studies of alcohol drinking are more mixed. Some studies find
heritability for boys but not for girls. Some are vise versa.
 Most studies show moderate heritability for both boys and girls. In both
sexes ranging from .36 to .56.

46
Marriage

 Genes can influence the tendency to marry or stay single. The heritability
estimate for tendency to marry is 68 percent.
 Gene also play an interesting role in marital satisfaction.
 Individual differences in women’s marital satisfaction are 50 percent heritability.
 The personality characteristics of wives, notably dispositional optimism, warmth, low
aggressiveness accounted for both their own and their husband’s marital satisfaction
 The genes play a pole in the quality of marriages, in part through heritable personality
characteristics.

47
Shared Versus Non-shared
Environmental Influences: A Riddle

 Same studies that suggest moderate heritability

also provide good evidence of the importance
of environmental influences.
 Personality characteristics show heritability in
30–50 percent range; hence, showing
substantial degree of environmentality —50–
70 percent.
Riddle:bilmece

48
Shared Versus Non-shared
Environmental Influences: A Riddle

 Two key types of environmental influences

 Shared: In family environment, features of
the environment shared by siblings (e.g.,
number of books in home).
 Non-shared: In family environment,
features of the environment that differ
across siblings (e.g., different friends,
different teachers).
49
 Shared Versus Non-shared
Environmental Influences
 For most personality traits, the environment has major influence, but this
influence is primarily in the form of non-shared and not shared variables.
 For most personality traits, the shared environment has little impact.
 Adoption studies show that the average correlation for personality
variables between adopted siblings who share much of their environment ,
but who share no genes, is only .05.
 Adopted siblings reared together but genetically unrelated correlated .41
(girls) and .46 (boys) in their patterns of smoking and drinking.
 Smoking and drinking have a substantial genetic component, there is also a
large shared environmental component.
 We do not know which non-shared experiences have a key impact on
personality.

Handout Activity 6-3 50

 Activity Handout 6–3:
Shared and Nonshared Environmental Variables
Instructions: Under the label “Shared Environmental Variables” below, write down five shared
variables that you had in common with your siblings while you were growing up (if you are an
only child, write down five things that might be shared environmental variables if you had
siblings). Next, and under the label “Nonshared Environmental Variables,” write down five
environmental variables that you did not share with any of your siblings while you were growing
up (again, imagine you had siblings if you are an only child).

Shared Environmental Variables

1. _________________________________________________________________________

2. _________________________________________________________________________

3. _________________________________________________________________________

4. _________________________________________________________________________

5. _________________________________________________________________________

Nonshared Environmental Variables

1. _________________________________________________________________________

2. _________________________________________________________________________

3. _________________________________________________________________________

4. _________________________________________________________________________

5. _________________________________________________________________________

© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 51

Genes and the Environment:
Two Issues

 How genetic and environmental factors

interact?
we have two types of analysis:
 Genotype-Environment Interaction
 Genotype-Environment Correlation

52
Genotype-Environment Interaction
 Differential response of individuals with different genotypes to the same
environments.
 The people with different genotypes (introverts-extraverts) respond
differently to specific environment (e.g. noisy settings) is what is meant by
genotype-environment interactions.
 For example, task performance of introverts versus extraverts in loud
versus noisy conditions.
 Introverts tend to perform well on cognitive tasks when there is little
stimulation in the room, but they do poorly when there are distractions
such as radio blaring or people walking around.
 Extraverts do just fine with radio blaring, the phone ringing and people
walking. But they make a lot of mistakes in these cognitive tasks when
there is little stimulation.
 Individual differences interact with environment to affect performance.
 Blare: herkese söylemek
53
Genotype-Environment Correlation
 Differential exposure of individuals with different genotypes to different
environments
 Individuals with different genotype (high versus low verbal ability) are exposed
to different environments (high versus low stimulation) is what is meant by
genotype-environment correlation.
 Parent might promote sport activities for athletically inclined children more
than for less athletically inclined children.
 Three types of genotype-environment correlations
 Passive

 Reactive

 Active

54
Genotype-Environment Correlation
Passive
 Passive genotype environment occurs when parents provide both genes
and environment to children, yet children do nothing to obtain that
environment.
 Child’s verbal ability and the number of books in home.

55
Genotype-Environment Correlation
Reactive
 Parents (or others) respond to children differently depending on the
child’s genotype.
 Baby’s liking for cuddling and the mother’s cuddling behavior.
 The reactive genotype environment correlation, which is achieved
because people react to children differently, based in part on the
children’s heritable dispositions.

56
Genotype-Environment Correlation
Active
 Person with particular genotype seeks out a particular environment
 High sensation seekers expose themselves to risky environments
such as skydiving, motorcycle jumping and drug taking.
 The environment can encourage the expression of the disposition
or it can discourage its expression.
 Environments can go against a person’s genotype, resulting in a
negative genotype-environment correlation, or they can facilitate
the person’s genotype, creating a positive genotype-environment
correlation.

57
Molecular Genetics

 Molecular genetics is using techniques designed to identify specific genes

associated with personality traits.
 D4DR—gene located on the short arm of chromosome 11, codes for
dopamine receptor.

58
Molecular Genetics
D4DR Gene

 Most frequently examined association between

D4DR gene and a personality trait involves “novelty
seeking”.
 Individuals with the “long repeat” version of D4DR
gene are higher on novelty seeking than individuals
with the “short repeat” version of gene.
 But several failures to replicate association and, when
replicated, association is weak.

59
Behavior Genetics, Science, Politics, and
Values
 Findings that some personality traits are heritable seemed to violate
prevailing environmentalist view that personality is determined by
socialization practices, such as parenting style.
 People also worried about political and ideological misuse of behavioral
genetics findings:
 These studies might be misused to label some people intrinsically superior to others.
 Findings will be misused to give some people preferential treatment in education or job
placement.

 Prevailing: üstün, hakim

60
Behavior Genetics, Science, Politics, and
Values

 Because scientific research can be misused for

political and ideological goals, scientists bear
special responsibility, but
 Science can be separate from values.
 Knowledge is better than operating in ignorance.

61
HAPPY END