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What is psychosurgery?
Psychosurgery is any brain surgery performed for the treatment of a psychological problem.
What is the term for the general intellectual climate of a culture?
What is the term used to describe the debate on whether behavior is inherited or learned? The nature-______ issue.
nurture
What is Cartesian Dualism?
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Who is considered the father of behaviorism?
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Behavior is solely inherited according to European ethology.
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Darwin published 'On the Origin of Species' in ________.
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What does ethology study?
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Match the following terms with their meanings:
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Evolution necessarily results in perfect design.
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What is the definition of chordates?
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What distinguishes reptiles from amphibians?
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Humans belong to the family ______, genus Homo.
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Match the term with its definition:
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What is the predominant mating pattern in most mammals?
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Humans generally form monogamous bonds.
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What is the term used for female mating with more than one male?
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Humans value __ in their mates more than _ do.
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Match the following mate-attraction strategies with the gender that primarily utilizes them:
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What are dichotomous traits?
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What predicts which women will bond with men of high occupational status?
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Who is known for studying dichotomous traits in true-breeding lines of pea plants?
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Genes are located on chromosomes.
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DNA is a double-stranded molecule of ____________.
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Match the following genetic terms with their definitions:
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Which of the following is true about epigenetics?
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DNA methylation involves the attachment of a methyl group to a DNA molecule.
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What is the term for a catalogue of all the modifications to DNA within a particular cell type?
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During fertilization, the resulting __ contains a full set of chromosomes.
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Match the following nucleotide bases with their pairing:
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Which statement about chromosomes is true?
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Study Notes
Thinking about the Biology of Behavior: From Dichotomies to Interactions
- Dichotomy: a simple way of thinking: good-bad, right-wrong, good-bad, attractive-unattractive
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Two kinds of questions asked about behavior:
- Is it physiological or psychological?
- Is it inherited or learned?
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Cartesian Dualism: the separation of mind and body:
- Physical matter: behaves according to laws of nature and is suitable for scientific investigation (human body, including the brain, and nonhuman animals)
- Human mind: the soul, self, and spirit, which lacks physical substance, controls human behavior, obeys no natural laws, and is influenced by the Church
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Nature-Nurture Debate:
- Inherited factors: instinctive behaviors that occur in all like members of a species, even when there seems to have been no opportunity for them to have been learned
- Learned factors: behavior that is acquired through learning and experience
Problems with Traditional Dichotomies
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Physiological-or-Psychological Thinking:
- Argument 1: even complex psychological changes can be produced by damage to or stimulation of parts of the brain
- Argument 2: some nonhuman species possess abilities that were once assumed to be purely psychological and thus purely human
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Inherited-or-Learned Thinking:
- Argument 1: many factors other than genetics and learning influence behavioral development
- Argument 2: behavioral development is through the interaction of both nature and nurture
A Model of the Biology of Behavior
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Three factors that interact to produce behavior:
- The organism's genetic endowment (product of its evolution)
- Experience
- Perception of the current situation
Evolutionary Theory
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Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution:
- Provided strong evidence for evolution
- Suggested how evolution occurs through natural selection
- Survival of the fittest: heritable traits associated with high rates of survival and reproduction are the most likely ones to be passed on to future generations
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Evidence for Evolution:
- Fossil records
- Structural similarities among living species
- Rapid evolution in progress (e.g., Grant's finches of the Galapagos Islands)
Evolution and Behavior
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Social Dominance:
- Important factor in evolution
- Dominant males copulate more than nondominant males and thus are more effective in passing on their characteristics to future generations
- In some species, dominant females are more likely to produce more and healthier offspring
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Courtship Displays:
- Precede copulation in many species
- Important for evolution as they can promote the formation of new species
- Can lead to the formation of reproductive barriers that are as effective as geographical separation
Human Evolution
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Course of Human Evolution:
- 600 million years ago: complex multicellular water-dwelling organisms first appeared on earth
- 450 million years ago: first chordates evolved
- 425 million years ago: first vertebrates evolved
- 410 million years ago: amphibians evolved
- 300 million years ago: reptiles evolved
- 180 million years ago: mammals evolved
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Primates and Hominids:
- There are 12 different families of primates
- The hominid family consists of 2 genera: Homo and Australopithecus
- Apes (gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees) are thought to have evolved from a line of Old World monkeys
- Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans, with almost 99% of genes being identical### Human Evolution
- 7 out of 8 human species are extinct, with Homo Sapiens being the last surviving species.
- Evolution does not proceed in a single line, and we do not represent evolutionary supremacy.
- Rapid evolutionary changes can occur due to sudden environmental changes or adaptive genetic mutations.
- Fewer than 1% of all known species are still in existence.
- Evolution does not necessarily result in perfect design, and not all existing behaviors or structures are adaptive.
- Spandrels are incidental nonadaptive evolutionary by-products, such as the belly button.
- Exaptations are evolved characteristics that serve a different function than their original purpose, such as bird wings initially evolving for walking.
Evolution of the Human Brain
- Brain size is not correlated with intelligence, but rather with body size.
- A more reasonable approach to studying brain evolution is to compare the evolution of different brain regions, such as the brain stem and cerebrum.
- The brain stem regulates reflex activities critical for survival, while the cerebrum is involved in more complex adaptive processes.
- Convolutions lead to a larger cerebrum, allowing for more compact functions of the brain.
- The brain has increased in size during evolution, with most of the increase occurring in the cerebrum.
- An increase in the number of convolutions has greatly increased the surface area of the cerebral cortex.
Similarities Between Human and Animal Brains
- Similarities between the brains of different species are more significant than the differences between them.
- All brains are constructed of many neurons, with similar neural structures performing similar functions.
Evolutionary Psychology: Understanding Mate Bonding
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Evolutionary psychology seeks to understand human behaviors by considering the pressures that led to their evolution.
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Most mammals form mating bonds, with the male staying with the female to promote the successful development of offspring.
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Natural selection promoted the evolution of mate bonding in mammalian males.
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Most mammals form polygynous mating bonds, where males mate with multiple females.
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Humans generally form monogamous bonds, with a focus on the survival of children.
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Evolutionary psychology predicts that men value youth and attractiveness in their mates, while women value power and earning capacity.
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Men are more likely than women to commit adultery.### Mendelian Genetics
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Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk, studied dichotomous traits in true-breeding lines of pea plants.
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Key findings: When true-bred brown and white peas are crossed, all offspring from the first cross have brown seeds, whereas 25% of offspring from the second cross have white seeds.
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4 central ideas of Mendel's theory:
- 2 kinds of inherited factors for each dichotomous trait (e.g., brown-seed factor and white-seed factor).
- Each organism possesses 2 genes for each of its dichotomous traits (e.g., 2 brown-seed genes, 2 white-seed genes, or 1 of each).
- 2 genes that control the same trait are called alleles (e.g., brown-seed allele and white-seed allele).
- 1 of the 2 kinds of genes for each dichotomous trait dominates the other in heterozygous organisms (e.g., brown-seed gene dominates white-seed gene).
Chromosomes
- Chromosomes: threadlike structures in the nucleus of each cell, located in matched pairs in all multicellular organisms.
- Key aspects of chromosomal function: recombination and replication.
- Reproduction and recombination: Meiosis produces gametes with half the usual number of chromosomes, and fertilization produces a zygote with a full set of chromosomes.
- Genetic recombination: crossover of chromosomes to exchange genetic material, creating diversity.
- Mitosis: all other cell division in the body, where each chromosome is replicated.
- Structure and replication: Each chromosome is a double-stranded molecule of DNA, with each strand a sequence of nucleotide bases attached to a chain of phosphate and deoxyribose.
Genetic Code and Gene Expression
- Structural genes: contain information for the synthesis of proteins.
- Proteins: long chains of amino acids, controlling physiological activities and cellular structure.
- Stretches of DNA that lack structural genes include portions called promoters/enhancers.
- Promoters/enhancers: determine whether particular structural genes are converted into proteins through a 2-phase process called gene expression.
- Control of gene expression: important process influencing how a cell develops and functions.
- Gene expression involves 2 phases:
- Transcription (DNA base-sequence code to RNA base-sequence code).
- Translation (RNA base-sequence code to protein).
Human Genome Project
- Purpose: compile a map of the sequence of all 3 billion nucleotide bases that compose human chromosomes.
- 3 major contributions:
- Insights into evolution.
- Humans have about 21,000 structural genes.
- Many genes have been linked to each disease, making it difficult to sort out interactions.
Modern Genetics: Growth of Epigenetics
- Epigenetics: focuses on mechanisms that influence the expression of genes without changing the genes themselves.
- 4 factors that led to the rise of epigenetics:
- Human Genome Project generated new research techniques.
- Discovered that protein-coding genes constitute only about 1% of human DNA.
- Most RNA molecules were small.
- Mechanisms of gene-experience interactions unknown.
- 5 important discoveries in epigenetics:
- Nongene DNA is not "junk DNA".
- Epigenetic mechanisms that can modulate gene expression (e.g., DNA methylation, histone remodeling).
- Worldwide effort to catalogue the epigenome of each cell type.
- Some epigenetic effects involve post-transcriptional alterations to RNA.
- Epigenetic mechanisms can be induced by experiences.
Epigenetics of Behavioral Development
- Insights into the genetics of behavior gained from early research on selective breeding.
- Classic research on phenylketonuria (PKU) has informed our understanding of the genetics of behavior.
- PKU: a single-gene metabolic disorder transmitted by a recessive gene mutation.
- Symptoms: intellectual disability, vomiting, seizures, hyperactivity, irritability, and brain damage.
- Behavioral symptoms result from an interaction between genetic and environmental factors.
Genetics of Human Psychological Differences
- Importance of distinguishing between the development of individuals and the development of individual differences.
- Heritability estimates and how they are commonly misinterpreted.
- Twin studies can be used to study the interaction of genes and experience in 2 ways:
- Examining the similarity of twins reared together versus those reared apart.
- Examining the similarity of twins' experiences and how they relate to their genetic similarity.
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Description
This quiz covers the concept of psychosurgery, its effects, and the importance of detailed assessment before performing the surgery. It also touches on the criteria for judging improvement in patients.
