Description

Behavioral genetics is an interdisciplinary field that combines approaches of genetic and behavioral sciences to explore: the role of genetic factors; the role of environmental factors; and the role of gene-environment interplay, to better understand the origins of individual differences in social development and other psychological characteristics. This chapter focuses on key concepts in behavioral genetics, and on recent findings from genetically informative studies, such as twin, adoption, and molecular genetic studies, in relation to child social development. Genetic and environmental factors do not work in isolation from each other, but rather co-act during the development. This gene–environment co-action or interplay includes gene–environment correlation and gene–environment interaction. Finally, the chapter discusses how the findings from behavioral genetic research can be used in practice, in order to help children, families, and professionals working with children.

Behavioral genetics has shown a striking and accelerating growth since 1950. Research on human beings has largely involved application of quantitative genetic models to continuously varying traits of intelligence and personality, and the favored technique has been one or another version of the twin method. Results have shown that heredity contributes importantly to variation of these behavioral traits, and that different subcategories of these traits are influenced by heredity in different degrees. Single genes have been shown to determine a number of conditions of mental retardation. The behavioral correlates of chromosome anomalies, representing either deficiency or excess of genetic material, appear variously to involve specific cognitive and personality functions as well as the gross mental retardation that characterizes some of these conditions.

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Nancy
Journal Coordinator
Journal of Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility