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An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient, his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book.
Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the balance between two competing factors which determine fate: genetics (nature) and environment (nurture). The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French.
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 content 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.
Human behaviour genetics is an interdisciplinary subfield of behaviour genetics that studies the role of genetic and environmental influences on human behaviour. Classically, human behavioural geneticists have studied the inheritance of behavioural traits. The field was originally focused on determining the importance of genetic influences on human behaviour. It has evolved to address more complex questions such as: how important are genetic and/or environmental influences on various human behavioural traits; to what extent do the same genetic and/or environmental influences impact the overlap between human behavioural traits; how do genetic and/or environmental influences on behaviour change across development; and what environmental factors moderate the importance of genetic effects on human behaviour. The field is interdisciplinary, and draws from genetics, psychology, and statistics. Most recently, the field has moved into the area of statistical genetics, with many behavioural geneticists also involved in efforts to identify the specific genes involved in human behaviour, and to understand how the effects associated with these genes changes across time, and in conjunction with the environment.
The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain. In addition, its aim is to help identify new treatments for them and ways to prevent them in the first place. The IoPPN is a faculty of King's College London, England, previously known as the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP).
The Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research is a series of behavioral genetic longitudinal studies of families with twin or adoptive offspring conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota. It seeks to identify and characterize the genetic and environmental influences on the development of psychological traits.
Research on the heritability of IQ inquires into the proportion of variance in IQ that is attributable to genetic variation within a population. Heritability, in this sense, is a mathematical estimate of how much of a trait's variation within a population can be attributed 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.
Psychiatric epidemiology is a field which studies the causes (etiology) of mental disorders in society, as well as conceptualization and prevalence of mental illness. It is a subfield of the more general epidemiology. It has roots in sociological studies of the early 20th century. However, while sociological exposures are still widely studied in psychiatric epidemiology, the field has since expanded to the study of a wide area of environmental risk factors, such as major life events, as well as genetic exposures. Increasingly neuroscientific techniques like MRI are used to explore the mechanisms behind how exposures to risk factors may impact psychological problems and explore the neuroanatomical substrate underlying psychiatric disorders.
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.
Robert J. Plomin, FBA is an American psychologist and geneticist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Plomin as the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century. He is the author of several books on genetics and psychology.
Peter McGuffin is a psychiatrist and geneticist from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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.
Project Talent is a national longitudinal study that first surveyed over 440,000 American high school students in 1960. At the time, it was the largest and most comprehensive study of high school students ever conducted in the United States. Designed by American Institutes for Research founder John C. Flanagan, Project Talent was intended as “the first scientifically planned national inventory of human talents.” Students from 1,353 schools across the country participated in two full to four days of testing. Fifty years later, the data is still widely used in multiple fields of study and follow-up studies are underway with original participants.
John C. DeFries is one of the world's leading behavior geneticists. His achievements include being President of the Behavior Genetics Association (1982–1983) and cofounder of the journal Behavior Genetics, as well as its co-editor (1970–1978). His awards include The Dobzhansky Award for Outstanding Research in Behavior Genetics, Consulting Editor of the Journal of Learning Disabilities (1987–2002), Fellowships in the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Section J (Psychology).
The study of memory incorporates research methodologies from neuropsychology, human development and animal testing using a wide range of species. The complex phenomenon of memory is explored by combining evidence from many areas of research. New technologies, experimental methods and animal experimentation have led to an increased understanding of the workings of memory.
Thalia Catherine Eley is a Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry's MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's College London. Her work focuses on the interplay between genetic and environmental factors on the development and treatment of anxiety and depression.
The relationship between intelligence and education is one that scientists have been studying for years. It is correct to say that higher level of education leads to greater level of intelligence and also true the other way around, however, it does not apply for every situation.
In behavioural genetics, DeFries–Fulker (DF) regression, also sometimes called DeFries–Fulker extremes analysis, is a type of multiple regression analysis designed for estimating the magnitude of genetic and environmental effects in twin studies. It is named after John C. DeFries and David Fulker, who first proposed it in 1985. It was originally developed to assess heritability of reading disability in twin studies, but it has since been used to assess the heritability of other cognitive traits, and has also been applied to non-twin methodologies.
Jenae M. Neiderhiser is an American behavior geneticist who is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Human Development and Family Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she is also co-director of the Gene Environment Research Initiative.
Yulia Kovas is a geneticist and psychologist - currently a Professor of Genetics and Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a visiting professor at UCL, King’s College, Sussex and New York Universities - in the United Kingdom. She received the British Academy Wiley Prize in Psychology in 2012. Kovas is the director of InLab at Goldsmiths. She leads the genetically-informative research into individual differences in mathematical ability and achievement as part of the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) at King’s College, London.
References
- ↑ "About TEDS". TEDS. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
- ↑ Oliver, Bonamy R.; Plomin, Robert (February 2007). "Twins' Early Development Study (TEDS): a multivariate, longitudinal genetic investigation of language, cognition and behavior problems from childhood through adolescence" (PDF). Twin Research and Human Genetics. 10 (1): 96–105. doi:10.1375/twin.10.1.96. ISSN 1832-4274. PMID 17539369.
