UIC NUEL 250 MIDTERM ACTUAL QUESTIONS

UIC NUEL 250 MIDTERM (ACTUAL / ) QUESTIONS &

VERIFIED CORRECT ANSWERS (LATEST UPDATE

Designs for measuring developmental change (know advantages and disadvantages of each)

• Cross sectional designs
• Longitudinal design
• Sequential designs - --Answers----1.

research where people of different ages are compared at the same point in time

Advantage: provide differences in development between age

groups, more economical in terms of research

Disadvantage: suffer drop outs, unable to inform about

changes in individuals or groups (snapshots of different groups) cannot determine if differences are related to time.

2.Research when the behavior of one or more participants is measured as they age (language development)- like videos taken of a person over life

Advantage: can provide lots of information about change over

time.

Disadvantage: require a lot of time, participants could drop out,

move, or become ill or die, also can become "test wise" each time they are tested

• examine a number of different age groups at several points

in time combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies most commonly used 1 / 3

Advantages: combines advantages of cross sectional and

longitudinal and allows to tease out consequences of age change vs. age difference

Two Broad Approaches To Studying Genetic Influences on Behavior - --Answers----Molecular genetics is concerned with locating genes on specific chromosomes (as in the Human Genome Project) and understanding the mechanisms by which specific genes operate Quantitative genetics concerned with "how much" variation in a trait is attributable to genes (how is IQ related to environment?) behavioral genetics- How much is attributed to nature & how much is nurture? study of effects of heredity on behavior & psychological characteristics

Turkheimer's Three laws of behavioral genetics - --Answers-- --1.All human behavioral traits are heritable.

• The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than

the effect of genes.

• A substantial proportion of the variation in complex human

behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or family environment.

Concept of heritability (3 laws) - --Answers----Heritability (h2) refers to the proportion of variation (individual differences) in some characteristic within a particular population that is attributable to genetic makeup. 2 / 3

Scientists use twin and adoption studies to calculate heritability

-High heritability DOES NOT MEAN:

persons intelligence is determined by genes, or that environment has no effect on phenotype

Reaction range (3 laws) - --Answers-----Any genotype (even highly heritable) can have a range of phenotypes depending upon environmental input -Twin studies & Height of Japanese born fathers and American-born sons both illustrate reaction range

"non shared environment" concept (3 laws) - --Answers---- third law says that the quantitative estimate of the variation in a trait attributable to genes (h2) and the variation attributable to the environment, represented as being reared in the same family, don't add up to 1 -remainder of the variation is said to be due to "non shared environment"

• Reasons Why The Environments of Siblings May Be "Non

Shared" - --Answers----1.Individuals vary in how they perceive and "interpret" experiences each environment is experienced differently thus affect people differently 2.differ in the environmental input they evoke because of genotype ("evocative gene-environment correlation")

• Individuals seek out different environments ("active

genotype-environment correlation")

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