Unit IV

1
Unit IV Modules 14/15

• Nature/Nurture
• Evolution
• Behavior-Genetics

2
Genie the Wild Child

• As you watch, make a claim and gather evidence to
  support that claim. Is Genie the product of her
  nature or her nurture?
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vhmdycJQi4QA

3
What was your argument?

• What evidence did you find to support your
  argument?

4
How do each of these perspectives explain a
complex human characteristic like gender?

• Nature of gender
• Nurture of gender
• Evolution of gender

5
The Nature of Behavior and Mental Processes

• Chromosomes
• Hormones
• Brain Structures/Chemicals

6
Genes Our Biological Blueprint

• Chromosomes
• 23 Pair
• Contain genetic material
• DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
• Building blocks of the chromosomes
• has two strands-forming a double helix
• Genes
• segment of DNA capable of synthesizing a protein

7
Gender and Nature

• 23rd Chromosome Sex
• X from egg
• X or Y from sperm
• XX Female
• XY Male
• Testosterone (androgen) Levels/Testes
• Estrogen Levels/Ovaries
• Brain Development
• Identity

8
Cognitive Differences

• No differences for most cognitive abilities
• Verbal, reading, and writing females
  consistently score higher
• Spatial skills males outscore females on
  mentally rotating objects, females score better
  on remembering locations of objects
• Math Skills males score slightly better than
  females

9
The Role of Hormones
Hormones are chemicals that control bodily
responses such as emotions, growth, and sexuality.
The sex hormones are estrogen and androgen.

• Males have more androgen.
• Females have more estrogen.
• Hormones play a lesser role in human development
  and behavior than they do in animals.

10
The Nurture of Behavior and Mental Processes

• Social Learning Theory
• Parenting
• Peers
• Culture
• Norms

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The Nurture of Gender

• Gender Role
• a set of expected behaviors for males and females
  influenced by culture/societal norms
• Gender Identity
• ones sense of being male or female
• Gender-typing
• the acquisition of a traditional masculine or
  feminine role

12
Gender Role Development

• Between ages 2-3 years, children can identify
  themselves and other children as boys or girls.
• The concept of gender or sex, however is based
  more on outward characteristics such as clothing.
• Toddler girls tend to play more with dolls and
  ask for help more than boys
• Toddler boys tend to play more with trucks and
  wagons, and tend to play more actively
• After age 3 years we see consistent gender
  differences in preferred toys and activities

13
The Nurture of Gender

• Social Learning Theory (behavioral)
• theory that we learn social behavior by observing
  and imitating and by being rewarded or punished
• Gender Schema Theory (cognitive)
• theory that children learn from their cultures a
  concept of what it means to be male and female
  and that they adjust their behavior accordingly

14
The Nurture of Gender

• Two theories of gender typing

15
Personality Differences

• No significant differences between men and women
  on most characteristics
• Women tend to be more nurturant than men (very
  broad)
• Men tend to be more assertive than women (very
  broad)

16
Evolutionary Psychology

• Evolutionary Psychology
• the study of the evolution of behavior and the
  mind, using the principles of natural selection
• Gender
• in psychology, the characteristics, whether
  biologically or socially influenced, by which
  people define male and female

17
Evolutionary Psychology

• Natural Selection
• Mutations
• random errors in gene replication that lead to a
  change in the sequence of nucleotides
• the source of all genetic diversity
• Maximizing Fitness
• Maximizing the fitness of your gene pool by
  selecting a mate with healthy genes and thus
  increasing your chances of producing healthy
  offspring.

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Evolutionary Psychology

• Critiquing the Evolutionary Explanation
• Evolutionary psychologists make too many
  hindsight explanations.

20
Behavior Genetics

• Behavior Genetics
• study of the relative power and limits of genetic
  and environmental influences on behavior
• Environment
• every nongenetic influence, from prenatal
  nutrition to the people and things around us

21
Behavior Genetics

• Identical (monozygotic) Twins
• develop from a single fertilized egg that splits
  in two, creating two genetically identical
  organisms
• Fraternal (dizygotic) Twins
• develop from separate eggs
• genetically no closer than brothers and sisters,
  but they share the fetal environment

22
Behavior Genetics

• Temperament
• a persons characteristic emotional reactivity
  and intensity
• Heritability
• the proportion of variation among individuals
  that we can attribute to genes
• may vary, depending on the range of populations
  and environments studied

23
Behavior Genetics

• Interaction
• the dependence of the effect of one factor (such
  as environment) on another factor (such as
  heredity)
• Molecular Genetics
• the subfield of biology that studies the
  molecular structure and function of genes

24
Nature/Nurture Interaction

• Experience affects brain development