Study Guide for Exam 2: Behavioral Genetics, Biological, Evolutionary, and Psychoanalytic Personality Theories

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering behavioral genetics, physiological paradigms, evolutionary mechanisms, and psychoanalytic models outlined in the Exam 2 Study Guide.

Eugenics

The ideology and movement aimed at improving the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding, which has historically raised profound ethical concerns regarding behavior genetics research.

Selective Breeding

A behavior genetics research method that involves mating individuals displaying specific traits to determine whether those traits can be passed down and concentrated across generations.

Family Studies

A behavior genetics method that examines phenotypic similarity as a function of known degrees of genetic relatedness among biological family members.

Twin Studies

A research method comparing the trait resemblance of monozygotic (MZ) twins, who share $100\%$ of their genes, to dizygotic (DZ) twins, who share approximately $50\%$ of their segregating genes.

Adoption Studies

A method in behavior genetics that separates genetic and environmental influences by comparing adopted children to their biological parents (genetic effect) and adoptive parents (environmental effect).

Heritability

A population statistic representing the proportion of observed phenotypic variance across individuals that is attributable to genetic variance.

Shared Environmental Influences

Environmental factors and experiences shared by siblings raised in the same home, such as family socioeconomic status, parental style, or household resources.

Nonshared Environmental Influences

Environmental experiences unique to an individual child within or outside the home, such as differential parental treatment or distinct peer groups, which foster differences between siblings.

Gene-Environment Correlations

The differential exposure of individuals with specific genotypes to particular environmental circumstances, classified into passive, reactive (evocative), and active varieties.

Frontal Lobe Lesions (Phineas Gage and Antonio Damasio's Patients)

Neurological damage to the prefrontal cortex illustrating that brain structures directly govern personality, characterized by severe deficits in impulse control, planning, and emotional regulation despite preserved intellectual functioning.

Nonspecific Electrodermal Responding

Spontaneous bursts of skin conductance that appear without an identifiable external stimulus, which are physiologically characteristic of individuals high in neuroticism and chronic anxiety.

Eysenck's Personality Dimensions

A physiological taxonomy of personality consisting of Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism, positing that extraversion reflects baseline arousal in the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) and neuroticism reflects limbic system reactivity.

Hebb's Optimal Level of Arousal

The principle that individuals are driven to maintain an intermediate, optimal level of physiological activation, experiencing underarousal as boredom and overarousal as distress.

Geen's Study of Musical Preference

An experimental investigation showing that introverts naturally choose lower levels of background noise and perform best under quiet conditions, whereas extraverts prefer and perform optimally under louder noise levels.

Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (Jeffrey Gray)

A neurobiological model of personality describing the Behavioral Activation System (BAS), which mediates sensitivity to rewards and approach behavior, and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), which mediates sensitivity to punishment and avoidance behavior.

Sensation Seekers

Individuals who actively pursue novel, complex, intense, and adventurous sensations and experiences, typically associated with lower levels of monoamine oxidase (MAO).

Cloninger’s Tridimensional Personality Model

A biological model mapping personality traits to distinct neurotransmitters: Novelty Seeking linked to dopamine, Harm Avoidance linked to serotonin, and Reward Dependence linked to norepinephrine.

Natural Selection

The evolutionary mechanism whereby individual variants better suited for survival in a given environment are more likely to endure and transmit their heritable traits to subsequent generations.

Sexual Selection

The evolutionary process driven by competition for mating success, comprising intrasexual competition (same-sex rivalry) and intersexual competition (preferential mate choice).

Intrasexual Competition

A component of sexual selection in which members of the same sex compete directly with one another for mating access to members of the opposite sex.

Intersexual Competition

A component of sexual selection involving mate selection based on the attractive or desirable qualities displayed by members of the opposite sex.

Inclusive Fitness

An evolutionary measure of reproductive success encompassing an individual's own offspring as well as the reproductive output of their genetic relatives, scaled by their degree of kinship.

Clark & Hatfield (1989)

A classic field experiment on sex differences in mating strategies which found that men were overwhelmingly receptive to immediate sexual offers from an attractive stranger, whereas zero women consented to identical propositions.

Sex Differences in Jealousy

An evolutionary psychology framework stating that men experience more intense jealousy in response to sexual infidelity due to paternity uncertainty, while women experience greater jealousy in response to emotional infidelity due to potential loss of commitment and resources.

Iceberg Model of the Mind

Freud's spatial conception of the psyche divided into the conscious mind (surface awareness), the preconscious mind (retrievable information), and the vast unconscious mind (hidden desires, memories, and drives).

Id, Ego, and Superego

The tripartite structure of the Freudian mind: the innate Id operating on the pleasure principle, the developing Ego navigating the reality principle, and the Superego embodying internalized social and moral standards.

Freudian Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious psychological strategies used by the ego to defend itself against anxiety generated by internal conflicts between the id's impulses and the superego's moral constraints.

Freudian Dream Analysis

A psychoanalytic method designed to uncover unconscious motives by decoding the manifest content (the consciously remembered storyline) to identify the underlying latent content (the repressed symbolic meaning).