With Reference to Relevant Research Studies, to What Extent Does Genetic Inheritance Influence Behavior?

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Nour El Farouk 02/12/2012 Psychology essay: With reference to relevant research studies, to what extent does genetic inheritance influence behavior? Every human being has genetic information carried in their DNA, their genotype. That information decides on how the person will look (color of eyes, hair type, tall, skinny) and since physiology can have an effect on psychology, these genes are also the base of behaviour. Genetic inheritance refers to the genes parents pass down to their offspring, the parents had these genes but might to have had them as dominant or didn’t have them triggered, therefore a parent can have a certain gene but It won’t show on them or affect them meanwhile their child to whom the gene has been passed down can suffer from it or not. Intelligence for example is an inherited behaviour but it all depends on whether it is developed throughout the individual’s life or not. A parent can have the intelligence genes but couldn’t afford a good education so their intelligence wasn’t developed, they somehow become rich and can afford to put their child in a good school the intelligence will therefore show on the child because the intelligence genes were triggered by the education. The good education will play a big role in the person’s intelligence but won’t be the base of it, for instance another child who doesn’t have the intelligent genes will not excel at school no matter how good the school they are put in is and if they do it’s not because they have it in their DNA but because of hard effort, tutoring…etc The following study done by Bouchard and McGue in 1981 helps support the idea that intelligence is inherited. The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 111 studies of siblings in order to study their IQ correlation. They investigated that correlation between siblings and found that there was a positive

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