PSYCH MOD 1: Chapter Read Along Q&A: The Nature-Nurture Question

There are three fundamental questions that exist at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Which of the following is one of them?

the nature-nurture problem

Which question has caused more controversy than any other in the history of psychology?

the nature-nurture debate

Which of the following examples would demonstrate the influence of nature on one's success?

a football player is born with the genes to be very tall, very fast and quite muscular

Denzel is a psychologist who is interested in conducting research that examines the nature-nurture debate as it applies to people. He is trying to come up with a way to explore this issue using an experiment, but is having difficulty constructing a research plan. What would be the primary obstacle Denzel faces?

One cannot manipulate human beings' genetics easily

Marilyn is a graduate student in psychology, and she has decided that she wants to study the influences of nature and nurture. Which of the following might be the most appropriate title for her thesis?

"How one's genes interact with their surroundings to determine intelligence."

The science of how one's genetic code and their environmental influences interact to affect their actions is called ______.

behavioral genetics

Which of the following provides the easiest opportunity to see the way in which genes and one's environment work together to influence behavior?

child adoption studies

Dr. Eplin is conducting a study with hundreds of children and the parents who raised them, but are not biologically related to the children. Dr. Eplin is curious whether genes or the household environment has a greater influence on children's behavior. What kind of study is Dr. Eplin conducting?

an adoption study

When Paula and Paulette were first conceived, they were the result of a single fertilized egg splitting into two different zygotes. They share all of their genetic code, and can be thought of as natural clones. What kind of twins are they?

monozygotic

How much of their genetic code do fraternal twins share?

50%

Martha and Mary are sisters who were born 2 ½ years apart. Eric and Merrick are fraternal twin brothers who were born 8 minutes apart. Which of the following would be the most accurate statement regarding their genetic similarities?

The sisters are as genetically similar as the twin brothers

The scientific discipline of ______ examines similarities between individuals and analyzes them based on how biologically related they are.

quantitative genetics

Quantitative genetics looks at similarities among individuals, analyzing how biologically related they are. These studies are often done on all of the following except which?

unrelated strangers

As a general statement, the higher the ______coefficient, the stronger the influence of one's genes on a specific trait being examined.

heritability

If you compare the heritability coefficient of a pair of distant cousins to that of a pair of identical twins, what would you expect to find?

the twins' coefficient would be much higher than the cousins'

Which of the following important discoveries was made by Watson and Crick in the 1950s?

the structure of DNA

Which of the following is the most accurate statement with regard to the influence of genetics on people's qualities?

everything has some footing in genetics

Which of the following has been the most important disappointment of nature-nurture studies?

the failure to adequately organize traits from more- to less-genetic

To what does "G x E" refer?

genetic differences can affect behaviors under some environmental circumstances but not others

Which of the following is a process in which the DNA itself is modified by environmental events and those genetic changes are then transmitted to children?

epigenetics