Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T18:21:07.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Simulating the dynamics of genes and environment in development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2009

Eric Turkheimer  and
Irving I. Gottesman
Eric Turkheimer*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Irving I. Gottesman
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
Eric Turkheimer, Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 (E-mail: [email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Biometric analyses of variability in behavioral phenotypes have demonstrated that genotype plays a significant role in all behavioral development, but the developmental significance of the environment has remained obscure. Behavior genetic analyses typically show the effect of shared family environment to be very small, although considerable variability remains to be explained after genetic factors have been accounted for. Behavior geneticists have suggested, contrary to intuition, that almost all of the important effects of the environment serve to make family members more different from each other. Environmentalists of several persuasions have pointed to the crucial importance of the environment in the initiation and regulation of all developmental processes. In this article, we present a series of simulations to suggest that some of the difficulty of identifying environmental effects in biometric models is methodological. Adding simple dynamic parameters to models of development leads to systems in which environment produces substantial variability that can be detected in the context of a particular genotype, but vanishes when genotype is allowed to vary.

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 8 , Issue 4: Developmental Pathways: Diversity in Process and Outcome , Fall 1996 , pp. 667 - 677
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumrind, D. (1993). The average expectable environment is not good enough: A response to Scarr. Child Development, 64, 1299–1317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. (1955). Genetics, evolution, and man. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. (1963). Genetic aspects of intelligent behavior. In Ellis, N. (Ed.), The handbook of mental deficiency: Psychological theory and research. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Gottesman, I. I. (1991). Schizophrenia genesis: The origins of madness. New York: Freeman.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, G. (1991). Experimental canalization of behavioral development: Theory. Developmental Psychology, 27, 4–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, G. (1992). Individual development and evolutions: The genesis of novel behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hebb, D. O. (1970). A return to Jensen and his social science critics. American Psychologist, 25, 568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, R. M., & von Eye, A. (1992). Sociobiology and human development: Arguments and evidence. Human Development, 35, 12–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, R. C. (1974). The analysis of variance and the analysis of causes. American Journal of Human Genetics, 26, 400–411.Google ScholarPubMed
Mather, K., & Jinks, J. L. (1971). Biometrical genetics: The study of continuous variation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCartney, K., Harris, M. J., & Bernieri, F. (1990). Growing up and growing apart. A developmental meta-analysis of twin studies. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 226–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGue, M., & Lykken, D. T. (1992). Genetic influence on risk of divorce. Psychological Science, 3, 368–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platt, S. A., & Sanislow, C. A. (1988). Norm-of-reaction: Definition and misinterpretation of animal research. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 102, 254–261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plomin, R., & Bergeman, C. S. (1991). The nature of nurture: Genetic influence on “environmental” measures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14, 373–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plomin, R., & Daniels, D. (1987). Why are children in the same family so different from one another? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plomin, R., & McClearn, G. E. (Eds.). (1993). Nature, nurture and psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plomin, R., Owen, M. J., & McGuffin, P. (1994). The genetic basis of complex human behaviors. Science, 264, 1733–1739.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reiss, D., Plomin, R., & Hetherington, E. M. (1991). Genetics and psychiatry: An unheralded window on the environment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 283–291.Google ScholarPubMed
Roses, A. D. (1996). From genes to mechanisms to therapies: Lessons to be learned from neurological disorders. Nature Medicine, 2, 267–269.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rowe, D. C. (1994). The limits of family influence: Genes, experience and behavior. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Scarr, S. (1992). Developmental theories for the 1990s: Development and individual differences. Child Development, 63, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1984). How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype → environment effects. Annual Progress in Child Psychiatry and Child Development, 98–118.Google Scholar
Schmalhausen, I. I. (1949/1986). Factors of evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, H. F.The IQ game: A methodological inquiry into the heredity-environment controversy. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Turkheimer, E. (1991). Individual and group differences in adoption studies of IQ. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 392–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turkheimer, E. (1995). Heritability and biological explanation. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Turkheimer, E., Goldsmith, H. H., & Gottesman, I. I. (1995). Commentary. Human Development.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turkheimer, E., & Gottesman, I. I. (1991). Individual differences and the canalization of human behavior. Developmental Psychology, 27, 18–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar