The behavioral genetics discipline deals with the genetic factors affecting human behaviors.It deals with the formation of behavior with respect to the purview of psychology and psychiatry.These traits may involve cognitive impairments, mental illness, depression, aggression, schizophrenia, substance use, and behavioral problems.
The present paper describes some recent findings from behavioral genetics research in temperament that go well beyond the basic nature-nurture question. These findings include the importance of nonshared environmental influences on temperament, genetic continuity and environmental change during development.
The field of behavioral genetics is moving forward and changing so rapidly that many of the articles included here are from relatively recent work. Some essential mainstays are included that all students of behavioral genetics should read and that both help to explain the history of this field and also represent seminal papers that still hold true.
William E. Castle (courtesy of Genetics Society of America). The first paper on the subject was a study in 1905 by Castle's student F.W. Carpenter on the fly's phototactic (Figure 2), geotactic and mechanosensory responses. He found that flies are positively phototactic, negatively geotactic, and induced to move by mechanical stimulation.
Behavioral genetics is the field of study that examines the role of genetics in human and animal behavior. It is often associated with the “nature versus nurture” debate. “Nature versus nurture” concerns the relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities, versus personal experiences in determining differences in physical and behavioral traits.
Psychiatric Genetic Studies: Correlations, Ethics, and Counseling. Introduction Psychiatric genetics is a subtopic of behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology and behavioral neuroscience. The research began with evolutionary psychology, the field of psychology that studies how much human thought and behavior is determined by genetics.
Part IV explores how the blame-shifting mechanisms of genetic reductionism and genetic determinism affect the individual, family, community, and society when genetics research focuses on criminal or antisocial behavior. Part V analyzes how racial and ethnic stigma arise from behavioral genetics research and perpetuate inequality.