MODULE 11 Behavior Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences

LEARNING OBJECTIVE QUESTION (LOQ 11-1 What are chromosomes, DNA,

genes, and the human genome? How do behavior geneticists explain our individual
differences?
If Beyoncé and JAY-Z's eldest daughter, Blue Ivy, becomes a popular recording artist,
should we attribute her musical talent to her "superstar genes"? T o her growing up in
o her parents' financial resources?
a musically rich environment? To high expectations? T
Such questions intrigue behavior geneticists, who study our differences and weigh the
effects and the interplay of heredity and environment.

The nurture of nature Parents

Genes: Our Codes for Life everywhere wonder: Wli my
baby grow pu
to be agreeable or aggressive? Successful or
Behind the story of our body and its brain —surely the most awesome thing on our little
planet— is the heredity that interacts with our experience to create both our universal struggling? What comes built in, and what
si nurtured — and how? Research reveals
nature and our individual and social diversity. On the eve of the twentieth century, few that both nature and nurture shape our
would have guessed that every cell nucleus in your body contains your genetic master development — every step ofthe.w
ya
code. It's as if every room in Dubai's Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest structure) contained
a book detailing the architect's plans for the entire structure. The plans for your own "Your DNA and mine are 99.9 percent the
book of life run ot 46 chapters— 23 donated by your mother's egg and 23 by your father's same.. At the DNA level, we are clearly all
sperm. Each of these 46 chapters, called a chromosome, is composed of a coiled chain part of one big worldwide family." - Francis
of the molecule DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Genes, small segments of the giant DNA Collins, Human Genome Project director, 2007
molecules, form the words of those chapters (FIGURE 11.1). Altogether, you have some
20,000 genes, which are either active (expressed) or inactive. Environmental events "turn behavior genetics the study of the
on" genes. When turned on, genes provide the code for creating protein molecules, our relative power and limits of genetic and
body's building blocks. environmental influences on behavior.
Genetically speaking, every other human is nearly your identical twin. Human heredity the genetic transfer of characteristics
genome researchers have discovered a common sequence within human DNA. We share from parents to offspring.
most of our genes with most people, creating a common genetic profile that makes us environment every nongenetic influence,
humans, rather than tulips, bananas, or chimpanzees. from prenatal nutrition to the people and
Yet we aren't all that different from our chimpanzee cousins. At a genetic level, things around us.
humans and chimpanzees are 96 percent identical (Mikkelsen et al., 2005). At chromosomes threadlike structures made
"functionally important" DNA sites (those that play a key role ni our evolution), this of DNA molecules that contain the genes.
number reaches 99.4 percent (Wildman et al., 2003)! Yet that wee 0.6 percent differ- DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) a complex
ence matters a lot. It took a human, Shakespeare, to do what our chimpanzee cousins molecule containing the genetic information
cannot-intricately weave 17,677 words into literary masterpieces. that makes up the chromosomes.
Slight differences matter among other species, too. Chimpanzees and bonobos genes the biochemical units of heredity that
resemble each other in many ways. They should —their genomes differ by much less make up the chromosomes; small segments
than 1 percent. But they display markedly different behaviors. Chimpanzees are often of DNA capable of synthesizing proteins.
aggressive and male-dominated. Bonobos are peaceable and female-led. genome the complete instructions for making
Consider how improbable you are. "Each pair of parents," notes behavior geneti- an organism, consisting of all the genetic
cist Kathryn Paige Harden (2021), "could produce over 70 trillion unique offspring." material in that organism's chromosomes.
 CHAPTER 4 NATURE, NURTURE, AND HUMAN DIVERSITY (MODULES 11-13)

* FIGURE 11.1 DNA

The life code The nucleus of every
human cell contains chromosomes, each
comprising two strands of DNA connected Chromosome

ni a double helix. Genes are D

NA segments
that, when expressed (turned on), direct the
development of proteins that influence a
person's individual development.
Gene
Cell

Nucleus

"We share half our genes with the When your biological parents shuffled their gene decks and dealt your hand, the
banana." - Evolutionary biologist Robert May, highly unlikely result was you —whti your special combination of traits and abili-
president of Britain's Royal Society, 2001 ties. Slight person-to-person variations from the common pattern give clues to our
uniqueness-why one person is more susceptible than others to certain psychological
disorders, or why one person's face is long and another's is wide (Grotzinger et al.,
2022; Zhang et al., 2022).
Most of our traits have complex genetic roots. Your height, for example, reflects
the size of your face, vertebrae, leg bones, and so forth —each of which may be influ-
Nature or nurture or both? When talent
enced by different genes interacting with your specific environment. Your leadership
runs ni families —as with musician Lenny ability, intelligence, aggressiveness, and even happiness are each similarly affected by
Kravitz, actor Lisa Bonet, and their daughter, a whole orchestra of genes (Holden, 2008; Song et al., 2022). Indeed, one of the big take-
actor Z ëo Kravitz— how do heredity and
home findings of today's behavior genetics is that no single gene predicts your smarts,
environment together do their work?
sexual orientation, or personality. Gene analyses of more than
300,000 people have, for example, identified 120 genes associ-
ated with schizophrenia (Trubetskoy et al., 2022). Another study
of 11. million people identified 1271 gene variations that together
predicted about 21 percent of the differences ni people's years of
schooling U . .J Lee et al., 2018). The bottom line: Our differing traits
are polygenic-influenced by many genes that each have a small
effect (Plomin, 2018; von Stumm & d'Apice, 2022).
So, our many genes help explain both our shared human
nature and our human diversity. But —another take-home
finding-knowing our heredity tells only part of our story. oT
form us, environmental influences interact with our genetic
predispositions.

RETRIEVAL P R A C T I C E
RP-1 Put the following cell structures in order from smallest to
largest: nucleus, gene, chromosome.
I APPENDIXE
ANSWERS N
 MODULE 11 BEHAVIOR GENETICS: PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 129

Twin and Adoption Studies Identical

twins
Fraternal
twins
LOQ 11-2 How do twin and adoption studies help us understand the effects and
interactions of nature and nurture?
To scientifically tease apart the influences of heredity and environment, behavior
geneticists could wish for two types of experiments. The first would control heredity
while varying the home environment. The second would control the home environ-
ment while varying heredity. Such experiments with human infants would be unethi-
cal, but nature has done this work for us.

Identical Versus Fraternal Twins

Identical (monozygotic) twins develop from a single fertilized egg that splits. Thus, they
are genetically identical-nature's own human clones (FIGURE 11.2). Indeed, they are
clones who share not only the same genes but the same conception and uterus, and
usually the same birth date. Two slight qualifications:
• Although identical twins have the same genes, they don't always have the same
number of copies of those genes repeated within their genome, and they sometimes
differ in their brain's tiny wiring structures. These variations help explain why
one twin may have a greater risk for certain illnesses and disorders, including Same Same o

sex only different sex

schizophrenia (Lee et al., 2019; Maiti et al., 2011).
• During prenatal development, most identical twins share a placenta (which transfers ① FIGURE 11. 2
nutrients and oxygen from mother ot embryo), but one of every three sets has separate Same fertilized egg, same genes;
different eggs, different genes Identical
placentas. One twin's placenta may provide slightly better nourishment, contributing twins develop from a single fertilized
eg,
to a few identical twin differences (Marceau et al., 2016; van Beijsterveldt et al., 2016). fraternal twins from w
to.
Fraternal (dizygotic) twins develop from two separate fertilized eggs. Although they
share a prenatal environment, they are genetically no more similar than ordinary siblings.
Shared genes can translate into shared experiences. Aperson whose identical twin has
autism spectrum disorder, for example, has about a 3 in 4 risk of being similarly diagnosed. If
the affected twin si fraternal, the co-twin has about a 1ni 3risk (Tick et al,. 2016). oT study the
effects of genes and environments, several thousand medical and psychological researchers
have studied nearly 15 million identical and fraternal twin pairs (Polderman et al., 2015).
Are genetically identical twins also behaviorally and emotionally more similar than
fraternal twins? Compared with fraternal twins, identical twins are much more alike in
their personality, their emotions, their politics, and even their marijuana use (Choi et al.,
2022; Hufer et al., 2020; Schaefer et al., 2021).
Identical twins, more than fraternal twins, look alike-so much so that most have dif-
ficulty distinguishing a flashed photo of their face from their co-twin's face (Martini et al.,
2015). So, do people's responses ot their looks account for their similarities? No. nI a clever
approach, researcher (and fraternal twin) Nancy Segal (2013) compared personality sim-
ilarity between identical twins and unrelated look-alike pairs. Only the identical twins
reported similar personalities. Other studies have shown that identical twins whose par-
Tho Sol

explaining individual differences, identical genes matter more than identical jeans.
Double twins When identical
wtnis
Brittany and Briana married identicalw
nsti
Separated Twins Josh and Jeremy, their baby boys became
Imagine the following science fiction experiment: A mad scientist, given two pairs of legal cousins, but genetic brothers.
identical twins, swaps one in each pair. The resulting pairs are then raised in separate
environments as if they were fraternal twins. Better yet, consider a true story (Dominus, identical (monozygotic) twins individuals
2015; Segal & Montoya, 2018):
who developed from a single fertilized egg
In 2015, William Velasco was working as a butcher ni Bogotá, Colombia. One day, that split in two, creating two genetically
customer Laura Vega Garzón mistook him for her colleague, Jorge, who looked the identical organisms.
same - same high cheekbones, same smile, same walking style. Was it Jorge, pretending fraternal (dizygotic) twins individuals
to be someone else? Confused, she returned to the butcher shop to show William a picture who developed from separate fertilized eggs.
of his look-alike, Jorge. William laughed and didn't take it seriously, but Laura later showed They are genetically no closer than ordinary
her colleague Jorge a photograph of William, the butcher. "That's me!" Jorge exclaimed. siblings, but shared a prenatal environment
 CHAPTER4 NATURE, NURTURE, AND HUMAN DIVERSITY (MODULES 11-13)

Do look-alikes act alike? Genetically

unrelated look-alikes, called doppelgangers,
tend not ot have notably similar personalities
(Segal, 2013). Amazingly, these wt o bearded,
red-haired, 64" minor league baseball pitchers
also share the same unusual name —Bardy
Feigl —but grew up unaware of each other.
Genetic testing confirmed that the two Brady C
Feigls are unrelated (Gaydos, 2019).
Dolliss
39-

Patta Menthodean Cond

Scrolling through William's social media photos, Jorge found another surprise: his look-
alike, William, was sitting next ot a mirror image of Jorge's fraternal twin brother.
Until then, William and Jorge had lived utterly separate lives. William grew up ni
a rural village, whereas Jorge was city-raised. William and Jorge both —thanks ot a colos-
sal hospital mistake —believed they had fraternal twin brothers, Wilber and Carlos,
respectively. In reality, Wilber and Carlos, like, William and Jorge, were identical twins.
The hospital had sent William home with Wilber, and Carlos home with Jorge.
Although they were raised apart, William and Jorge both were jokesters, physically
strong, and supportive. Wilber and Carlos were moody and serious, always organized,
and prone to crying, and they had the same speech impediment. Each of the four had
wondered why he felt so different from his supposed fraternal twin. Meeting their iden-
tical twins revealed the power of genetics.
Genes matter, but so does environment. Urban dwellers Jorge and Carlos had better
nutrition, and were taller than rural-raised William and Wilber. Wilber didn't have
access to the speech therapy that Carlos did, which meant that only Wilber struggled
with speaking as an adult.
The remarkable story of the "Bogot brothers" (see tinyurl.com/BogotaBrothers for pho-
tos and more) resembles that of many separated twin pairs. When tested by psychologists
Thomas Bouchard and Nancy Segal, separated identical twins exhibited similarities not only
of tastes and physical attributes but also of personality, abilities, attitudes, interests, and fears

Bogotá brothers When two pairs of

accidentally switched Colombian identical
twins were reunited, the power of nature
was evident. But the twins also witnessed
the impact of their different childhood
environments and family circumstances.
Nature and nurture matter.

fl y
Emirates
 MODULE 1 BEHAVIOR GENETICS: PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Stories of startling twin similarities have not impressed critics, who remind us that Separated Jims
"the plural of anecdote is not data." They note that fi researchers created a control group In 1979, Jim Lewis awoke next to his second
of biologically unrelated pairs of the same age, sex, and ethnicity, who had not grown up wife, for whom he often left love notes around
together but who were as similar to one another in economic and cultural background the house. As he lay in bed, he thought about
as are many of the separated twin pairs, these pairs would also exhibit striking, yet coin- his son, James Alan, and his dog, Toy. Jim
cidental, similarities (Joseph, 2001). Twin researchers reply that separated fraternal twins enjoyed building furniture in his basement
do not, however, exhibit similarities comparable to those of separated identical twins. woodworking shop, including a white bench
encircling a tree in his front yard. He also liked
Even the impressive data from personality assessments are clouded by the reunion of
many of the separated twins some years before they were tested. Moreover, when adop- driving his Chevy, watching stock-car racing
and drinking Miller Lite beer.
tion agencies are involved, separated twins tend to be placed ni similar homes. Despite Shockingly, there existed another Jim for
these criticisms, the striking twin-study results helped shift scientific thinking toward whom all these things were also true!' Thirty-
a greater appreciation of genetic influences. seven days after their birth, identical twins
Jim Lewis and Jim Springer were adopted
Biological Versus Adoptive Relatives separately and raised with no knowledge of
For behavior geneticists, nature's second real-life experiment-adoption -creates two each other until the day Jim Lewis received
groups: genetic relatives (biological parents and siblings) and environmental relatives (adop- a call from his genetic clone (who, having
tive parents and siblings). For personality or any other given trait, we can ask whether been told he had a twin, set out to find him).
The 39-year-old brothers became the first of
adopted children are more like their biological parents, who contributed their genes, or 74 separated twin pairs tested by psychologist
their adoptive parents, who contribute a home environment. And while sharing that Thomas Bouchard and his colleagues (2009;
home environment, do adopted siblings come to share traits? P. Miller, 2012).
The stunning finding from studies of hundreds of adoptive families is that, apart from
identical twins, people who grow up together- - whether biologically related or not — od
not much resemble one another ni personality (McGue & Bouchard, 1998; Plomin, 2011;
Rowe, 1990). In personality traits such as extraversion and agreeableness, for example,
people who have been adopted are more similar ot their biological parents than to their
caregiving adoptive parents.
The finding is important enough to bear repeating: Unless an environment is extreme
(such as conditions of war or famine), shared family environment has little discernible impact
on children's personality. Two adopted children raised in the same home are no more likely
to share personality traits with each other than with the child down the block.
Heredity shapes other primates' personalities, too. Macaque monkeys raised by fos-
ter mothers exhibit social behaviors that resemble their biological, rather than foster,
mothers (Maestripieri, 2003).
The genetic leash may limit the family environment's influence on personality, but ti
does not mean that adoptive parenting is a fruitless venture. One study followed more
than 3000 Swedish children with at least one biological parent who had depression.
Compared with their not-adopted siblings, those raised by an adoptive family were
about 20 percent less likely to develop depression (Kendler et al., 2020). As an adop-
tive parent, I (ND] find it heartening to know that parents do influence their children's
attitudes, values, manners, politics, education, and faith (Gould et al., 2019; Willoughby
et al., 2021). This was dramatically illustrated during World War I by separated identical
twins Jack Yufe, who was Jewish, and Oskar Stöhr, a member of Germany's Hitler Youth. Siblings so different: Hermann Goering was
After later reuniting, Oskar mused to Jack: "If we had been switched, I would have been outgoing, loved crowds, and became Hitler's
the Jew, and you would have been the Nazi" (Segal, 2005, .p 70). Parenting-and the cul- right-hand man and founder of the Nazi
tural environments in which parents place children —matters! Gestapo. His younger brother Albert Goering
was quiet and reclusive, and worked to save
Moreover, child neglect and abuse and even parental divorce are rare in adoptive
the Jewish people that brother Hermann's
homes. (Adoptive parents are carefully screened; biological parents are not.) One study regime was killing (Brennan, 2010).
looked at biological mothers with multiple children who were raised apart-some
of whom they parented, and some of whom an adoptive mother parented (Natsuaki
et al., 2019). Compared with the biological mothers, the adoptive mothers used gentler
parenting and gave more guidance. So it is not surprising that most adopted children
thrive, especially when adopted as infants (Loehlin et al., 2007; van lJzendoorn &Juffer,
2006; Wierzbicki, 1993). Seven ni eight adopted children have reported feeling strongly
attached ot one or both adoptive parents. As children of self-giving parents, they have

'Actually, this description of the two Jims errs ni one respect: Jm i Springer named his
i Lewis named his son James Alan. Jm
Jalites Mildl.
 132 CHAPTER 4 NATURE, NURTURE, AND HUMAN DIVERSITY (MODULES 11-13)

grown up to be more self-giving and altruistic than average (Sharma et al., 1998). Many
scored higher than their biological parents and raised-apart biological siblings on intel-
ligence tests, and most grew into happier and more stable adults (Kendler et al., 2015;
van ljzendoorn et al., 2005). In one Swedish study, children adopted as infants grew up
with fewer problems than were experienced by children whose biological mothers ini-
tially registered them for adoption but then decided to raise the children themselves
emCollet/Sipa/Shutterstock

(Bohman &Sigvardsson, 1990). The bottom line: Most adopted children benefit from
adoption.

ASK YOURSELF
Do you know biological siblings who, despite having been raised together, have very different
personalities? (Are you one of these siblings, perhaps?) Knowing what you do of their lives and
upbringing, what do you think contributed to these differences?

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-2 How do researchers use twin and adoption studies to learn about psychological
principles?
I APPENDIX E
ANSWERS N

Temperament and Heredity

LOQ) 11-3 What have psychologists learned about temperament?
As most parents with multiple children report, babies differ right out of the womb
(Willoughby et al., 2019). One aspect of personality —temperament (emotional reactiv-
ity and intensity)-is quickly apparent, and it is genetically influenced (Kandler et al.,
2012; Raby et al., 2012). Identical twins, more than fraternal twins, often have similar
temperaments (Fraley &Tancredy, 2012; Kandler et al,. 2013). Temperament differences
typically persist. Emotionally reactive infant monkeys tend to become reactive adults
(Fox et al., 2021). Ditto for emotionally intense preschoolers, who tend to become rela-
tively intense young adults (Larsen & Diener, 1987). One study of 1037 New Zealanders
found that a 45-minute assessment of 3-year-olds' frustration tolerance, impulsivity,
and intelligence could predict "with considerable accuracy" which of them would, by
Adoption matters Oscar-winning actor age 38, consume the most welfare benefits, parent and then abandon the most chil-
Frances McDormand and Olympic gold dren, and commit the most crime (Caspi et al., 2016).
medal gymnast Simone Biles both benefited The genetic effect appears ni physiological differences. Anxious, inhibited infants
orfm one of hte biggest gifts of love: have high and variable heart rates and a reactive nervous system. When facing new or
adoption. strange situations, they become more physiologically aroused (Kagan &Snidman, 2004;
Roque et al., 2012).

Heritability
LOO 11-4 What si heritability, and how does ti relate ot individuals and groups?
So, our biology helps form our personality. Yet asking whether our personality is more
a product of our genes or our environment is like asking whether a basketball court's
size is more the result of its length or its width. However, we could ask whether different
court sizes are more the result of differences ni their length or width. Similarly, we can
ask whether person-to-person personality differences are influenced more by nature or
by nurture.
→ temperament a person's characteristic Using twin and adoption studies, behavior geneticists can mathematically estimate
emotional reactivity and intensity. the heritability of atrait —the extent ot which variation among individuals ni a group
heritability the proportion of variation can be attributed to their differing genes. For many personality traits, heritability is
among individuals ni a group that we can about 40 percent (Weinschenk et al., 2022). For major depressive disorder, heritability
attribute to genes. The heritability of a is about 30 percent (Pettersson et al., 2019). For adult intelligence, heritability is
trait may vary, depending on the range of about 60 percent (Plomin et al., 2016). This does not mean that your intelligence is
populations and environments studied. 40-60 percent genetic. Rather, it means that genetic influence explains 60 percent of
 MODULE 11 BEHAVIOR GENETICS: PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 133

the observed variation among adults. W e can never say what percentage of an individu-
al's personality or intelligence is inherited. It makes no sense to say that your person-
ality is due x percent to your heredity and y percent ot your environment. This point
is so often misunderstood that we repeat: Heritability refers to how much differences
among people are due to genes.
The heritability of traits such as intelligence varies from study to study. Con-
sider humorist Mark Twain's (1835-1910) fictional idea of raising boys ni barrels until
age 12, feeding them through a hole. fI we followed his suggestion, the boys would all
emerge with lower-than-average intelligence scores at age 12. Yet, given their equal
environments, their test score differences could be explained only by their heredity.
With the same environment, heritability - differences due to genes —would be nearly
100 percent.
As environments become more similar, heredity becomes the primary source of dif- "You can be whatever you want to be,
but you'll probably turn out like me."
ferences. If all schools were of uniform quality, all families equally loving, and all neigh-
borhoods equally healthy, then heritability would increase (because differences due to
environment would decrease). But consider the other extreme: If all people had similar
heredities but were raised in drastically different environments (some in barrels, some
in luxury homes), heritability would be much lower. So, heritability is not a single fixed
score; it varies with changing environments.
If genetic influences help explain variations in traits among individuals in a group,
can the same be said of trait differences between groups? Not necessarily. Height is
90 percent heritable, yet nutrition (an environmental factor) rather than genes expläins
why, as a group, today's adults are taller (Floud et al., 2011). In 1896, the global average
height for men was 5 feet 3 inches (162 centimeters) and for women was 4 feet 10 inches
(151 centimeters) (Our World ni Data, 2019). nI the 1990s, their male and female coun-
terparts stood 3.5 inches 9( centimeters) taller. The two groups differ, but not because
human genes have changed in this eyeblink of time. With their better diets, South
Korean men and women now average 6 inches (15 centimeters) taller than genetically
similar North Koreans (Johnson et al., 2009). Genes matter, but so does environment.
As with height, so with personality and intelligence scores: Heritable individual dif-
ferences need not imply heritable group differences. And, fi some individuals are geneti-
cally disposed ot be more aggressive than others, that needn't explain why some groups
are more aggressive than others. Putting people ni a new social context can change their
aggressiveness. Today's peaceful Scandinavians carry many genes inherited from their
Viking warrior ancestors.

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-3 Those studying the heritability of a trait try to determine how much of the person-
to-person variation in that trait among members of a specific group is due to their
differing
ANSWERS N I APPENDIX E

Gene-Environment Interaction
Among our similarities, the most important —the behavioral hallmark of our species —is
our enormous adaptive capacity. Some human traits develop the same way in virtu-
ally every environment. But other traits are expressed only in particular environments.
Go barefoot for a summer and you will develop toughened, callused feet —a biological
adaptation ot friction. Meanwhile, your shod neighbor will remain a tenderfoot. The dif-
ference between the two of you is an effect of the environment. But it is the product of
a biological mechanism - adaptation. Our shared biology enables our developed diversity
(Buss, 1991). Thus, to say that genes and experience are both important is true. But more
precisely, they interact.
Just how our genes and our experiences interact ot form us is one of psychology's hot- interaction the interplay that occurs
test topics. Gene-environment interaction studies reveal that family genetics help pre- when the effect of one factor (such as
dict child abuse and neglect, which in turn predicts poor mental health (Warrier et al., environment) depends on another factor
2021). These studies also demonstrate who is most at risk of permanent harm from (such as heredity).