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Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination.
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat, which in extreme cases of fear can be a freeze response or paralysis.
Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically, claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups were observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Further complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a social construct rather than a biological reality, and intelligence has no undisputed definition. The validity of IQ testing as a metric for human intelligence is itself disputed. Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between groups, and that observed differences are environmental in origin.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and adjust emotions to adapt to environments. Although the term first appeared in 1964, it gained popularity in the 1995 best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, written by science journalist Daniel Goleman. Goleman defined EI as the array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance.
Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and in related fields, from biology to psychology. Twin studies are part of the broader methodology used in behavior genetics, which uses all data that are genetically informative – siblings studies, adoption studies, pedigree, etc. These studies have been used to track traits ranging from personal behavior to the presentation of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
Antisocial personality disorder is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of disregard of, or violation of, the rights of others as well as a difficulty sustaining long-term relationships. Lack of empathy is often apparent, as well as a history of rule-breaking that can sometimes include law-breaking, a tendency towards substance abuse, and impulsive and aggressive behavior. Antisocial behaviors often have their onset before the age of 8, and in nearly 80% of ASPD cases, the subject will develop their first symptoms by age 11. The prevalence of ASPD peaks in people age 24 to 44 years old, and often decreases in people age 45 to 64 years. In the United States, the rate of antisocial personality disorder in the general population is estimated between 0.5 and 3.5 percent. In a study, a random sampling of 320 newly incarcerated offenders found ASPD was present in over 35 percent of those surveyed.
The Big Five personality traits is a suggested taxonomy, or grouping, for personality traits, developed from the 1980s onward in psychological trait theory.
The study of religiosity and intelligence explores the link between religiosity and intelligence or educational level. Religiosity and intelligence are both complex topics that include diverse variables, and the interactions among those variables are not always well understood. For instance, intelligence is often defined differently by different researchers; also, all scores from intelligence tests are only estimates of intelligence, because one cannot achieve concrete measurements of intelligence due to the concept’s abstract nature. Religiosity is also complex, in that it involves wide variations of interactions of religious beliefs, practices, behaviors, and affiliations, across a diverse array of cultures.
The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately seven million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago. The first three million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following two million concern Australopithecus and the final two million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era.
Research on the heritability of IQ inquires into the degree of variation in IQ within a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. There has been significant controversy in the academic community about the heritability of IQ since research on the issue began in the late nineteenth century. Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by more than one gene, and in the case of intelligence at least 500 genes. Further, explaining the similarity in IQ of closely related persons requires careful study because environmental factors may be correlated with genetic factors.
Personality development encompasses the dynamic construction and deconstruction of integrative characteristics that distinguish an individual in terms of interpersonal behavioral traits. Personality development is ever-changing and subject to contextual factors and life-altering experiences. Personality development is also dimensional in description and subjective in nature. That is, personality development can be seen as a continuum varying in degrees of intensity and change. It is subjective in nature because its conceptualization is rooted in social norms of expected behavior, self-expression, and personal growth. The dominant viewpoint in personality psychology indicates that personality emerges early and continues to develop across one's lifespan. Adult personality traits are believed to have a basis in infant temperament, meaning that individual differences in disposition and behavior appear early in life, potentially before language of conscious self-representation develop. The Five Factor Model of personality maps onto the dimensions of childhood temperament. This suggests that individual differences in levels of the corresponding personality traits are present from young ages.
Dog behavior is the internally coordinated responses of individuals or groups of domestic dogs to internal and external stimuli. It has been shaped by millennia of contact with humans and their lifestyles. As a result of this physical and social evolution, dogs have acquired the ability to understand and communicate with humans, and they are uniquely attuned in these fellow mammals. Behavioral scientists have uncovered a wide range of social-cognitive abilities in domestic dogs.
The study of height and intelligence examines correlations between height and human intelligence. Some epidemiological research on the subject has shown that there is a small but statistically significant positive correlation between height and intelligence after controlling for socioeconomic class and parental education. The cited study, however, does not draw any conclusions about height and intelligence, but rather suggests "a continuing effect of post-natal growth on childhood cognition beyond the age of 9 years." This correlation arises in both the developed and developing world and persists across age groups. An individual’s taller stature has been attributed to higher economic status, which often translates to a higher quality of nutrition. This correlation, however, can be inverted to characterize one’s socioeconomic status as a consequence of stature, where shorter stature can attract discrimination that affects many factors, among them employment, and treatment by educators. One such theory argues that since height strongly correlates with white and gray matter volume, it may act as a biomarker for cerebral development which itself mediates intelligence. Competing explanations include that certain genetic factors may influence both height and intelligence, or that both height and intelligence may be affected in similar ways by adverse environmental exposures during development. Measurements of the total surface area and mean thickness of the cortical grey matter using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed that the height of individuals had a positive correlation with the total cortical surface area. This supports the idea that genes that influence height also influence total surface area of the brain, which in turn influences intelligence, resulting in the correlation. Other explanations further qualify the positive correlation between height and intelligence, suggesting that because the correlation becomes weaker with higher socioeconomic class and education level, environmental factors could partially override any genetic factors affecting both characteristics.
In multivariate quantitative genetics, a genetic correlation is the proportion of variance that two traits share due to genetic causes, the correlation between the genetic influences on a trait and the genetic influences on a different trait estimating the degree of pleiotropy or causal overlap. A genetic correlation of 0 implies that the genetic effects on one trait are independent of the other, while a correlation of 1 implies that all of the genetic influences on the two traits are identical. The bivariate genetic correlation can be generalized to inferring genetic latent variable factors across > 2 traits using factor analysis. Genetic correlation models were introduced into behavioral genetics in the 1970s–1980s.
Behavioural genetics, also referred to as behaviour genetics, is a field of scientific research that uses genetic methods to investigate the nature and origins of individual differences in behaviour. While the name "behavioural genetics" connotes a focus on genetic influences, the field broadly investigates the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence individual differences, and the development of research designs that can remove the confounding of genes and environment. Behavioural genetics was founded as a scientific discipline by Francis Galton in the late 19th century, only to be discredited through association with eugenics movements before and during World War II. In the latter half of the 20th century, the field saw renewed prominence with research on inheritance of behaviour and mental illness in humans, as well as research on genetically informative model organisms through selective breeding and crosses. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, technological advances in molecular genetics made it possible to measure and modify the genome directly. This led to major advances in model organism research and in human studies, leading to new scientific discoveries.
An addictive personality refers to a hypothesized set of personality traits that make an individual predisposed to developing addictions. This hypothesis states that there may be common personality traits observable in people suffering from addiction; however, the lack of a universally agreed upon definition has marked the research surrounding addictive personality. Addiction is a fairly broad term; it is most often associated with substance use disorders, but it can also be extended to cover a number of other compulsive behaviors, including sex, internet, television, gambling, food, and shopping. Within these categories of addiction a common diagnostic scale involves tolerance, withdraw, and cravings. This is a fairly contentious topic, with many experts suggesting the term be retired due to a lack of cumulative evidence supporting the existence of addictive personality. Stating that characteristics of personality attributed to addictive personality do not predict addiction, but can result from addiction. However, different personality traits have been linked to various types of addictive behaviors, suggesting that individual addictions may be associated with different personality profiles. The strongest consensus is that genetic factors play the largest role in determining a predisposition for addictive behaviors. Even then, however, genes play different roles in different types of addictions. Forty to seventy percent of the population variance in the expression of addictions can be explained by genetic factors.
The evolution of schizophrenia refers to the theory of natural selection working in favor of selecting traits that are characteristic of the disorder. Positive symptoms are features that are not present in healthy individuals but appear as a result of the disease process. These include visual and/or auditory hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and major thought disorders. Negative symptoms refer to features that are normally present but are reduced or absent as a result of the disease process, including social withdrawal, apathy, anhedonia, alogia, and behavioral perseveration. Cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia involve disturbances in executive functions, working memory impairment, and inability to sustain attention.
The biological basis of personality is the collection of brain systems and mechanisms that underlie human personality. Human neurobiology, especially as it relates to complex traits and behaviors, is not well understood, but research into the neuroanatomical and functional underpinnings of personality are an active field of research. Animal models of behavior, molecular biology, and brain imaging techniques have provided some insight into human personality, especially trait theories.
Evolutionary psychiatry, also known as Darwinian psychiatry, is a theoretical approach to psychiatry that aims to explain psychiatric disorders in evolutionary terms. A branch of the field of evolutionary medicine, it is distinct from the medical practise of psychiatry in its emphasis on providing scientific explanations rather than treatments for mental disorder. This often concerns questions of ultimate causation. For example, psychiatric genetics may discover genes associated with mental disorders, but evolutionary psychiatry asks why those genes persist in the population. Other core questions in evolutionary psychiatry are why heritable mental disorders are so common how to distinguish mental function and dysfunction, and whether certain forms of suffering conveyed an adaptive advantage. Disorders commonly considered are depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, eating disorders, and others. Key explanatory concepts are of evolutionary mismatch and the fact that evolution is guided by reproductive success rather than health or wellbeing. Rather than providing an alternative account of the cause of mental disorder, evolutionary psychiatry seeks to integrate findings from traditional schools of psychology and psychiatry such as social psychology, behaviourism, biological psychiatry and psychoanalysis into a holistic account related to evolutionary biology. In this sense, it aims to meet the criteria of a Kuhnian paradigm shift.
In the field of personality psychology, Machiavellianism is a personality trait centered on manipulativeness, callousness, and indifference to morality. Though it has nothing to do with the historical figure or his political thought, the trait is named after the political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli, as psychologists Richard Christie and Florence Geis used edited and truncated statements inspired by his works to study variations in human behaviors. Their Mach IV test, a 20-question, Likert-scale personality survey, became the standard self-assessment tool and scale of the Machiavellianism construct. Those who score high on the scale are more likely to have a high level of deceitfulness and a cynical, unempathetic temperament.
References
- ↑ Bac, Mehmet (March 2009). "Generalized trust and wealth". International Review of Law and Economics. 29 (1): 46–56. doi:10.1016/j.irle.2008.07.008.
- ↑ Nannestad, Peter (June 2008). "What Have We Learned About Generalized Trust, If Anything?". Annual Review of Political Science. 11 (1): 413–436. doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.060606.135412 . ISSN 1094-2939.
- 1 2 Carl, Noah; Billari, Francesco C. (2014-03-11). Dowd, Jennifer Beam (ed.). "Generalized Trust and Intelligence in the United States". PLOS ONE. 9 (3): e91786. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...991786C. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0091786 . ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3950280 . PMID 24619035.
- ↑ Van Lange, Paul A. M. (February 2015). "Generalized Trust: Four Lessons From Genetics and Culture". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 24 (1): 71–76. doi:10.1177/0963721414552473. ISSN 0963-7214. S2CID 220394838.
- ↑ Intravia, Jonathan; Stewart, Eric; Warren, Patricia; Wolff, Kevin (2016). "Neighborhood disorder and generalized trust: A multilevel mediation examination of social mechanisms". Journal of Criminal Justice. 46 (1): 148–158. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2016.05.003.
- ↑ Van Der Werff, Lisa; Freeney, Yseult; Lance, Charles E.; Buckley, Finian (2019). "A Trait-State Model of Trust Propensity: Evidence from Two Career Transitions". Frontiers in Psychology. 10: 2490. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02490 . PMC 6848461 . PMID 31749749.
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