Heritability and How Psychologists Assess Nature vs Nurture

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In this video, we describe how psychologists determine the extent to which a given human trait is determined by nature (i.e., genes) vs. nurture (i.e., environment). We specifically learn about heritability and how psychologists calculate heritability–through behavior genetic research designs.

Nature vs. Nurture: A debate about how much of a given aspect of human psychology is determined by nature (i.e., genes) vs. nurture (i.e., environment and experiences).

Heritability: The percentage of the variability in a trait across individuals that is due to genes (not to environment); determined by behavior genetic designs.

Family Studies: A type of behavior genetic design in which researchers examine the extent to which a trait runs in families.

Twin Studies: A type of behavior genetic design in which researchers examine the extent to which traits tend to go together for monozygotic vs. dizygotic twins, with the assumption being that greater concordance of traits between monozygotic twins compared to dizygotic twins indicates a greater influence of genes (vs. environment) on that trait.

Monozygotic (MZ) Twins: Twins who share 100% of their genetic material; identical twins.

Dizygotic (DZ) Twins: Twins who share 50% of their genetic material; fraternal twins.

Adoption Studies: A type of behavior genetic design in which researchers examine the extent to which children adopted into new homes resemble their adoptive parents (with whom they share environment) as opposed to their biological parents (with whom they share genes).