Different Strokes: Prenatal Environment, The
Nurture begins in the womb as the fetus is exposed to various types of nutrition and agents that are potentially toxic. The significance of the prenatal environment was underscored in a longitudinal study of 10,000 families in England that began i...
Different Strokes: How Influential is the Shared Family Environment?
The environment is the nature portion of the human equation-those factors along with genetics that shape the emerging individual. From the time of Freud, it was assumed that the shared family environment was primarily responsible for similarities ...
Codes of Life: Studies of Twins Separated at Birth
In recent years a group of scientists known as behavior geneticists have been probing the relative impact of genetic and environmental influences using twin studies and comparing adoptive and biological siblings with one another. Because twins may...
Codes of Life: Temperament Studies
Temperament, or behavioral style, seems to be genetically influenced, as parents with several children will attest. Jerome Kagan highlights three areas in which researchers find temperamental biases: reaction to things that are new or unfamiliar...
Codes of Life: Evolutionary Psychology and Adaptation
Genetic predispositions help explain both our shared human nature as well as our individual differences. Evolutionary psychology takes a broader view, over a longer period of time, to determine the strategies that are useful for preserving the spe...