Psychology mid-semester exam notes

What does psychology have to do with the real world?

Psychology is based on scientific method.

Experimental control.
Strict measurement.
o These factors form the basis of understanding, measuring, and changing
psychological aspects of the real world.
Stress disorders:
o Trauma -> develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Affects about 10% of survivors.
Managing stress responses:
o Trauma counselling -> Common response for 30+ years.
Many millions of dollars spent yearly.
Psychological debriefing:
o Presumes sharing your experience is a good a thing.
o Intended to prevent PTSD.
o Controlled trials have now proven that debriefing does not prevent psychological
disorders.
How do we know that it does not work?

How does basic psychology inform clinical practice?

Animal models are shaping how we understand and treat traumatic stress disorders.
Extinction involves new learning when the stimuli are repeatedly presented but without a
negative outcome teaches that the stimuli is now signalling safety.
Extinction learning and stress:
o Ran firefighters through fear conditioning/extinction paradigm (pattern) before
trauma.
o Assessment 4years following exposure.
o Those who developed stress disorders were poorer in extinction learning before
they became firefighters.
Basic animal models of learning are crucial to understanding humans.
Helps identify people who are at risk of PTSD.
May lead to better prevention methods.
What about treatment?
o Putting the rat back into the chamber without the shock leads to new learning that
the chamber is safe called extinction learning.
o Putting the human back safely leads to new learning that the world is safer than
once before.
Major way of human treatment after trauma.
Based on basic animal work.
Can animal neurosciences shape clinical practice? YES.
o Brain regions predict treatment response:
The same brain regions underpinning extinction in rats predict exposure
therapy for fear in humans.
Extending from basic animal research is helping us understand how to treat
people affected by trauma.
o Neurotransmitters and learning:
Animal studies show that it is a neurotransmitter linked to emotional
learning.
o Glutamate and therapy:
Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter.
Can now improve therapy for anxiety by increasing glutamate prior to
therapy.
Advance is a direct result of psychological models tested by animal
research.
Summary:
o Basic psychological principles & research shape major
policies and practices in society.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

o This basic work is essential for developing new approaches

to many disorders.
o It is also essential for testing if what we do works or not.
The scientific approach in Psychology:

Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes.

Behaviour = overt (observable) actions; Physiological correlates of actions.
Mental Processes = Thoughts (memories, imagery, concepts); Emotions (fear,
happiness, anger, arousal); interactions between the two (e.g. decision making).
Goals of scientific psychology:
o Description of behaviour using careful observations.
o Prediction allows for specification of the conditions under which a behaviour will or
will not occur.
o Explanation identifying the cause(s) of behaviour.
o Facilitating changes in behaviour (e.g. therapy).

A very brief history of psychology:

Origins:
o Emerged as a part of philosophy.
o Self-defined as an empirical science.
o Early assumption that the goal of psychology was to understand the structure and
the contents of the mind.
First scientific psychologists: Introspection:
o Metaphor -> looking inwards to examine ones own conscious experience of
phenomenology.
o Tell me everything that comes into your head when you look at the object.
Wilhelm Wundt (Leipzig) trained observers to report on their experiences
under different experimental conditions
o Failed as self-reports were unreliable.
Functionalism:
o William James emphasised the analysis of psychological processes in terms of their
function e.g., attention serves to highlight and focus analysis on certain stimuli.
o Consistent with evolutionary framework.
o Focuses on identifying the rules/steps by which a particular task is achieved, not
one the underlying mechanism.
Philosopher Jerry Fodor argued that the task could then be implemented on
any information processing system, such as a computer.
Behaviourism:
o Early challenge to introspection.
o Argued that the subjective experience could not be verified by an objective
observer.
Only the study of observable behaviour qualified as scientific.
o Highly successful approach.
o Two variants;
Radical:
Internal states (i.e. thoughts & emotions) are unobservable and as
a result are not a part of scientific psychology.
Methodological:
Acceptable to study internal states only if linkable to observable
behaviours.
Is still the approach underlying much of modern psychology and
associative learning.
Psychoanalysis:
o Another challenge to introspection.
o Freud argued that many important psychological events are unconscious.
o His theory has not been supported but the idea that many psychological processes
proceed without full conscious awareness is well established.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

What is personality?

Psychological differences between people -> thought, emotion and behaviour.

Generally distinct from intellectual abilities.

Psychodynamic approaches:

Unconscious mind.
Intrapsychic conflict.
Trait approaches:
o Describing how people differ psychologically.
o Determining which features are important.
Genetic approaches:
o Inherit some of our personality from our parents.
o Genes + Environment = Personality.
Phenomenological approaches:
o Focus on experience.
o Cross-cultural:
Phenomenological varies across cultures
Culture influences peoples perception of reality and is learned consciously
and unconsciously.
Culture is relatively stable but does change over time.
Cross-cultural psychology aims to investigate the similarities and
differences in psychological constructs and behaviours across cultures.
Why is cross-cultural psychology important?
Australia is a very multicultural psychology.
Psychologists in Australia need to be able to provide services to
people from a wide range of cultures.
Need to be aware of culture differences to function as a united
society.
Understanding cultural differences is necessary for reducing
prejudices.
Ritualistic behaviours and culture:
In some cultures ritualistic behaviours is considered very normal
before certain activities.
In some cultures there is a shared belief that failure to perform
these rituals will bring bad luck.
In some Native American cultures Shahmen perform these rituals
for others in the community.
Learning approaches:
o Focus on measurable behaviours.
o Personality is shaped by rewards, punishments and expectations in life.

Personality Psychology:

Focus is on the differences between people.

Focus is on the whole persons in their daily environment.
o Level of abstraction.
Distinct from social psychology.
o Internal vs. External influences.
o Stability vs. Malleability.
Distinct from clinical psychology.
o Over laps with each other.
o Pervasive problems in functioning associated with personality = Personality
disorder.
o Both fields study whole person, one at a time.

Freud:

Ideas dominated psychology for nearly 100years many of which are still with us today.
Ideas are often misunderstood in popular culture.
Early psychoanalytic theory:
o Source of problem stems from the unconscious.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

o The mind is a place of conflict.

o Emphasis on childhood experiences and sexuality.
Freuds three models:
o The topographic model:
Unconscious -> fears, violent motives, immoral urges, selfish needs,
unacceptable sexual desires, irrational wishes, shameful experiences.
Preconscious -> memories, stored knowledge.
o Conscious -> thoughts, perceptions.
o The structural model:
Id (es).
Ego (ich).
Super ego (Uber-ich).

Id:
o Pleasure principle.
o Immediate gratification.
o Sex (libido).
Eros.
o Death.
Thanatos.
o Operates by primary process.
Ego:
o Reality principle.
o The Self.
o Ego defence mechanisms.
o Operates by secondary process.
When repression fails: Ego defence mechanisms
Projection.
o Attributing an unconscious impulse, attitude, trait, or
behaviour to someone else.
o Help you hide the unwanted object from yourself.
o False consensus effect:
Overestimating the percentage of other people who
share ones traits, opinions, preferences or
motivations.
Protect self-esteem by reducing the distinctiveness
of ones bad traits.
Derived from suppressing bad traits and causes
rebound effect.
o The genetic model:
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

Operant Conditioning Terms:

Reinforcement:
o Increasing the frequency or probability of a behaviour by presenting or
removing a stimulus following that behaviour.
Positive Reinforcement:
Increasing the frequency or probability of a behaviour by
presenting an appetitive stimulus following the behaviour
e.g. press lever, get food.
o Get a good thing for increasing.
Negative Reinforcement:
Increasing the frequency or probability of a behaviour by
removing an aversive stimulus following the behaviour e.g.
press lever, shock ends.
o Lose a bad thing when increased.
Punishment:
o Decreasing the frequency or probability of a behaviour by presenting or
removing a stimulus following that behaviour.
Positive Punishment:
Decreasing the frequency or probability by presenting an
aversive stimulus following the behaviour e.g. cheat on the
exam = fail the course.
o Receive a bad thing if not decreased.
Negative Punishment:
Decreasing the frequency or probability by removing an
appetitive stimulus following the behaviour e.g. break rules =
no cigarettes (prison inmates).
o Lose a good thing if decreased.

Stimulus Added Stimulus Taken Away

Behaviour Positive Reinforcement (+ Negative Reinforcement (-
increases appetitive) aversive)
Behaviour Positive Punishment (+ Negative Punishment (+
decreases aversive) appetitive)
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

Basics for humanist theories:

Freud: We are all victims of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges.

o Vs.
Radical Behaviourism: We act the way we do because of the situation we are in and past
situations we have encountered.

o Defining characteristics:
Focus on phenomenology:
The study of conscious experience as it exists for the person,
without any attempt to reduce, divide, or compartmentalise it in
any way.
Believe in free will.
Believe meaning is important.
Emphasis on individuality.
Personal growth.
Enjoying the here and now.

Carl Rogers Theory:

Carl Rogers:
o In a psychological climate which is nurturant of growth and choice, I have never
know an individual to choose the cruel or destructive path it is cultural influences
which are the major factor in our evil behaviours.
o The effects of culture on personality -> can distort inherent goodness.
Rogers theory of personality:
o Actualising tendency:
Built-in motivation to develop its potentials to the fullest extent possible.
o Organismic valuing process:
Subconscious guide that attracts people to growth producing experiences
and away from growth-inhibiting experiences.
o Positive love:
Experience love, affection, attention, nurturance, and so on.
o Positive self-regard:
Self-esteem, self-worth, a positive self-image.
Achieved through parental unconditional positive regard.

o People are inherently good.

Societal/Environmental factors can steer them in the wrong direction.
o All people have basic motivation to self-actualise.
o When ideal self matches actual self.
o To achieve this, one requires the right environment.
Supportive.
Accepting.
Empathetic.

Maslow Hierarchy:

Focus on the need to self-actualise.

Motivated to achieve certain needs.
o Hierarchical structure.
o Lower more basic needs met first.
In order to reach self-actualisation all lower needs must be met first.
o Physiological -> Safety -> Love/Belonging -> Esteem -> Self-Actualisation

Does money buy happiness?

Sometimes enough to buy basic needs.

o Moral: Money is necessary but not sufficient to be happy.
There is too much focus on material gain ultimately dissatisfying.
Changes relationships.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

Behavioural and molecular genetics:

Nature vs. Nurture

o Nature prepares us for nurture.
Studying the effects of biology on personality is more informative.
Genes:
o No single trait X gene.
o Clusters of genes likely predispose use to certain personality traits.
E.g. physical strength and coordination (the athletic type).
E.g. academic ability (the nerd).
Interactionism: Molecular genetics:
o Genes -> Life path modified by environmental encounters.
o E.g. MAOA aggression gene.
o E.g. mental disorders.
Schizorepenia.
Bipolar disorder.
Alcoholism.
Antisocial personality.
Twin studies:
o Sir Francis Galton (1869):
Emphasis on heritability.
Proposed twin studies.
Eminence runs in families.
Racist and sexist.
Eugenics facilitate procreation among eminent families.
o Methodology:
Monozygotic (MZ) vs. Dizygotic (DZ)
Monozygotic twins result from the fertilization of one egg and one
sperm. The fertilized embryo then splits within days after
fertilization resulting in two individuals which usually share the
same chromosomes. Monozygotic twins are also known as identical
or maternal twins.
Dizygotic are twins which result from the fertilization of 2 different
eggs with 2 different sperms. Dizygotic twin pairs can be girl/girl,
boy/boy, or girls/boy. Other words for dizygotic twins are also
fraternal or non-identical twins.
Heritability estimate.
% of variance due to genetics.
Are MZ and DZ twins treated similarly?
Adoption approach:
MZ twins reared apart.
If heredity is really important.
o MZ twins reared apart = MZ twins reared together.
15-50% of variance in personality characteristics is genetically influenced.
Public policy implications:
o Social Darwinism:
Survival of the fittest.
Misinterpreted as the weak should not survive.
Societies/cultures complete for survival.
Immigration laws.
Biased testing.
Preservation and purification of the gene pool of the elite
(Eugenics).
Eugenics:
Encourage reproduction among genetically advantaged.
Lower reproduction among genetically disadvantaged (e.g.
sterilisation, abortion).
US.
Australia (stolen generation).
Genocide in the name of Eugenics:
Ethnic and/or Religious cleansing.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

o Nazi Germany.
Jews, Roma, homosexuals, physical or mental
disability.
o Iraq Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurds.
Eugenics today: the case of IQ.
o Minnesota twin studies.
Identical twins reared apart of together have higher
IQ concordance than biological siblings.
The Bell Curve (Hernstein & Murray, 1994).
o Asians .33 SDs higher than whites.
o Whites 1.58 SDs higher than African Americans.
2009 Harvard PhD thesis (Richwine):
o Only immigrants with the highest IQs should be let in and
that Hispanics, their children and grandchildren were
destined to lesser intellect.
Intelligence varies with:
o SES
Going low to high SES increased IQ 1 SD. Black
children adopted by whites has equal IQs to
whites.
o Education
2.7 IQ point advantage for each year of schooling.
Trait perspectives Early history and theories:
o 4 body humours:
Sanguine (blood).
Choleric (yellow bile).
Melancholic (black bile).
Phlegmatic (phlegm).
o Phrenology:
Possible for the wealthy people.
A bump or depression in certainarea corresponded
to personality traits.
o Sheldons body types (1940).
Endomorphy.
Mesomorphy.
The BIG 5 supertraits acronym:
o OCEAN and does it predict behaviour?:
Openness.
Knowledgeable.
Perceptive.
Imaginative.
Behaviour?:
o Desire artistic expression.
o Devalue traditional marriage.
o More arrests.
Conscientiousness.
Neat.
Planful.
Careful.
Behaviour?:
o More likely to ban household smoking.
o Avoid unsafe sex.
o Responsive parenting.
o Live longer.
Extraversion.
Gregarious.
Outspoken.
Energetic.
Behaviour?:
o Great prominence in groups.
o Greater peer acceptance in adolescents.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

o Firm handshake.
o Less cooperative.
o More satisfied with life.
Agreeableness.
Considerate.
Nice.
Complaining (reverse).
Behaviour?:
o More empathic parents.
o Less revenge seeking.
o Greater control.
Neuroticism.
Nervous.
Tense.
Fearful.
Behaviour?:
o Less satisfied with life.
o Increased anxiety and depression.
o Among youth, troubled relationships with parents.
o Lower status among men only.
o Poor romantic relationship quality.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

What is culture?

Shared:
o Values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
Related terms:
o Race (biology), Nationality (birth-place), Ethnicity (mix of race, nationality/region,
religion and culture).
Developed/reinforced through rituals, history, cuisine, religion, clothing, government
structure, family structure, etc.
Relatively stable but changes over time.
Distinguishes one group from another.

How does culture emerge?

Evolution.
Predictions:
o Some values are more likely to emerge than others.
Valued behaviour = golden rule (morality -> equity/fairness).
Unvalued behaviour = stealing, murder.
Certainty:
o Desire for truth and confidence.
Terror management theory:
o Immortality:
Liberal: religion.
Symbolic: art, music, film, language, surname, shared reality (structure and
meaning).
o Trade off/Consequences:
Standards to evaluate adherence.
Self-esteem feel valuable if I live up to standards.
Experiments:
o Reminded of own death what will happen when you die?
o Control groups eating, public speaking, intense pain, meaningless, failing exam,
ostracised.
o Measure outcome e.g. president/reward.
o Measure other potential factors (e.g. mood, physiological and self-awareness.

Time Perspective will have an exam question RSA ANIMATE: The Secret
Powers of Time.

6 main time zones 2 of the past, the present and the future.
o 2 of the past:
Past positive good old times.
Past negative regrets and failures.
o 2 on the present:
Hedonistic
Live for pleasure.
Avoid pain.
Seek knowledge and sensation.
Others say:
It doesnt pay to plan my life is fated
o Fated by the conditions lived under i.e. religion, poverty
etc.
o 2 on future:
Most of us are future oriented.
Have learnt to work rather than play.
Avoid temptations.
Depending on religious orientation life beings after death of a mortal
body.
Have to trust that decisions made for the future will carry out successfully.
E.g. if you have inflation, you do not place money in the bank as
you cannot trust the future.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

E.g. instability in a family may mean adults cannot keep their

promises they make to the youth.
You can identify different countries as having different pace of life.

Big issues that developmental psychologists lose sleep over

Development: Things that change with age.

In humans; strategy, emotion, bodies, language, memory and sexuality develop.
Issues in developmental psychology.
o Big 3 Nature vs. Nurture, Early Experience vs. Later Experience and Continuity
vs. Discontinuity.
Nature vs. Nurture what are the causes of developmental change?
Biology vs. Experience:
o Biological view:
Development is simply maturation.
A genetically determined process of growth that
unfolds naturally over a period of time.
Genes vs. Environment:
o Environmental view:
Environmental events shape the course of a childs
development.
Genetics/biology place no restrictions on how a
child develops.
Which view is right? Neither. Development proceeds as an
interaction of biological and environmental factors.
Early Experience vs. Later Experience to what extent does early
experience shape later functioning.
To what degree, and under what conditions, does experience
influence development?
Are there critical or sensitive periods of development?
The timing of experience:
o Critical periods:
A period time during development when certain
experience are crucial for a particular feature of
development to emerge.
o Sensitive periods:
A period of time during which experience is optimal
for the development of a particular function, but it
is not critical.
A similar function can develop after the sensitive
period has closed, but usually under more intense
experience.
Continuity vs. Discontinuity What is the nature of developmental change?
Starfish vs. Dragonfly Starfish developmental continuity vs.
Dragonfly development continuity.
Continuous:
o Change is gradual and uniform.
o Change is quantitative.
Quality amount of skill and behaviour.
o E.g. Rovee-Colliers theory of infant memory development.
Discontinuous:
o Change is abrupt and step-like.
o Change is qualitative.
Quality or kind of skill, behaviour.
o E.g. Piagets stage theory of cognitive development.
o It is both continuous (gradual) and discontinuous (stage-
like).
Goals of developmental psychology:
o To describe developmental psychologists observe how humans change over time.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

o To explain developmental psychologists want to understand what causes

developmental change.
o To apply developmental psychologists try to use their knowledge to optimise
developmental outcome.
Methods of studying development:
o Longitudinal studies:
Some participants are observed, tested, or interviewed repeatedly over a
period of time.
Measure age-related changes but:
Time consuming, attrition (loss of participants).
Generational differences.
Practice effects from repeated measures.
o Cross-sectional design:
Participants from different age groups are studied simultaneously.
Measure are-related differences:
Less time consuming; snapshot.
Representative sample of population.
Cohort effects.

The BIG 3: Nature & Nurture Genes and Environment

Genes:
o Basic unit of heredity.
o Chromosome threadlike structure found in the nucleus.
o DNA double-stranded molecule that makes up the chromosomes.
o Each chromosome or DNA contains thousands of genes.
o Each gene contains instructions for building a specific protein.
o A gene is expressed if it has been turned on to make a specific protein.
o What has it got to do with me?
Started as a single cell = zygote = sperm (23 chromosomes) + egg (23
chromosomes),
Each parent contributes to half of your genetic make-up.
o Each gene has a different form called ALLELES.
o You have two alleles for every gene one from each parent.
If 2 alleles for a specific gene are the same form HOMOZYGOUS.
If 2 alleles for a specific gene are of different forms HETEROZYGOUS.
Studying genes and the environment:
o Genotype = genetic blue print; DNA passed from parents to child.
o Phenotype = observable physical or psychological attributes or qualities.
o Behaviour Genetics:
Researchers try to understand how genetic and environmental factors
combine to produce differences in individual behaviour (phenotypes).
o Researchers in behaviour genetics estimate heritability.
The degree to which variation in a particular trait among individuals is due
to genetic differences among those individuals.
o We can use what we know about the degree or relatedness to work out the relative
contribution of genes and environment to a particular phenotype.
o Twin studies:
Monozygotic vs. Dizygotic twins.
Share 100% vs. 50% of their genetic make-up.
Often raised in the same environment at the same time.
Compare similarity of trait X in people differ in their degree of
relatedness.
o Based on many studies, heritability estimates have been obtained for many human
traits:
Physical characteristics (e.g., height).
Mental illnesses (e.g., schizophrenia).
Developmental disabilities (e.g., autism).
Personality traits (e.g., extraversion).
Intelligence.
G X E interactions:
o Genes are not statics.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

o Environmental factors turn them on (i.e. gene expression).

Certain genes respond to certain environmental influences at certain times.
o Examples:
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study:
1000 individuals followed from age 3.
DNA findings related to environmental measures and
psychopathology.
MAOA gene:
High activity.
Low activity.
G X E interaction.
Maltreatment is a risk factor for antisocial behaviour BUT only in
individuals with low MAOA activity.
FADS2 gene and breastfeeding in IQ.
Children who are breastfed have a higher IQ than those who are
not.
Fatty acids in breast milk are important in brain development;
FADS2 is involved in fatty acid metabolism.
Do differences in FADS2 gene moderate the effect of breastfeeding
on cognitive development?
FADS2 gene:
o Homozygous (CC or GG).
o Heterozygous (CG)
G X E interaction:
o Breastfeeding enhanced IQ, BUT only in children who are
carriers of the C allele.
Take home:
o Nature AND Nurture:
Many psychology traits are heritable.
Part of individual variability relates to genetics.
In all cases, environmental factors interact with genes to determine
phenotypes.

The BIG 3: Nature & Nurture Parental development and environmental

influences:

Parental development:
o Prenatal development:
Development that occurs between conception and birth.
Begins in fallopian tube when sperm penetrates egg to form a zygote.
Takes about 266 days for the one-celled zygote to become a foetus of 200
billion cells.
o Three periods:
Germinal period:
From conception through implantation.
14 days.
Zygote travels towards uterus:
o Divides and forms blastocyst.
o 16 to 64 cells.
Embryonic period:
3rd 8th week.
Formation of major organs.
The blastocyst implants in the uterine wall.
Layers of cells differentiate to become different parts of the body.
Foetal period:
9th week birth.
Organ system begins to function; organism grows.
A period of rapid growth and refinement of organ and brain
systems.
Foetus more responsive.
Behaviour becomes increasingly regular and integrated.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

Foetuses become viable between 22-28 weeks.

o 6 months:
Foetus is capable of responding to light.
Able to hear sound:
Sound level in the uterus is 75db.
The mothers voice and heartbeat are best
heard.
Limit of viability = 24 weeks.
o 7 months:
Third trimester!
Foetus begins putting on weight in the form of fat
just beneath the skin.
o 8 months:
o Babys head is 2/3 times the size of an adults.

Teratogens

Any disease, drug or other environmental agent that can harm a developing embryo or
foetus e.g.:
o Drugs narcotics, cocaine, heroin, prescription drugs, thalidomide.
o Cigarettes and alcohol.
o Food poisoning.
o Infectious diseases.
o Radiation (x-rays).
o Toxoplasmosis (cat poo).
o Zika virus.
o Chemicals (bleach, etc).
o Heavy metals.
Effects depend on:
o Timing.
Organ systemts and the brain are particularly susceptible during periods of
rapid development.
o Dose.
o Duration.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

Case studies:

Why did people willingly participate in the atrocities of the Holocaust?

o Perceived authority of the person giving orders.
o Presence of a contradictory authority.
o Proximity of a victim.
o Level of direct responsibility of the outcome.
Blind obedience more likely to occur when people shift the responsibility for
their actions onto someone or something else.

Does money buy happiness?

o Yes on average.
o Countries that get richer do not necessarily get happier.
o Moral: Money is necessary but not sufficient to be happy.

The case of IQ.

o Minnesota Twin Studies.
Identical twins reared apart (r=.76) or together (r=.86) have higher IQ
concordance than biological siblings (r=.47).
Meta-analysis
Heritability accounts for 48% of IQ.

The Office Space Study

o Gosling et al., (2002, study 1)
5 office locations in a big US city.
Administered the BFI (self & peer reports).
8 raters examined each office on 43 aspects and the BFI for the office
inhabitant (observer rating).
The observers could judge accurately from the offices the level of
extraversion, openness and conscientiousness.
o Study 2 bedrooms.
Could judge all dimensions from bedroom.
o Back et al (2010)
Cyberspace Level of neuroticism could not be determined.
The dog study
o Gosling et al., (2003, study 3).
Big 4 (no C) rated on dogs by owner and familiar other.
Dogs performed several tasks in a park.
Behaviours coded by 3 independent observers who did not know dog or
owner.
Can determine dimensions of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism,
and Openness.
Conscientiousness only appears in chimpanzees.

G X E Interaction examples:
o Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study
1000 individuals followed from age 3.
DNA findings related to environmental measures and psychopathology.
E.g.
MAOA gene and childhood maltreatment on conduct disorder.
FADS2 gene and breastfeeding in IQ.
o Conduct disorder:
Example: MAOA metabolises neurotransmitters in the brain; low activity
associated with aggression in animals.
Maltreatment is a risk factor for antisocial behaviour BUT only in
individuals with low MAOA activity.
o IQ:
Fatty acids in breast milk are important in brain development; FADS2 is
involved in fatty acid metabolism.
Psychology mid-semester exam notes

Children who are breastfed have higher IQ than those who are not
breastfeeding enhanced IQ, BUT only in children who are carriers of
the C allele.