Francis Galton was born in the year 1822, half cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton was around during the time that Darwin’s theory of natural selection came about. It was during this time that the concept of people varying from one other started to rise. With Francis Galton taking lead, this idea eventually led to a focus on individual differences in the field of psychology (Goodwin, 2012). Galton’s life was filled with so many different accomplishments and achievements. He was became part of the group of British explorers of Africa in the Victorian era, won a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society, created the first systematic weather maps, and influenced the “fingerprinting” technique widely used today to distinguish between people.
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nurture debate. The nature vs. nurture debate is essentially the question of whether certain human characteristics, such as intelligence in this case, are part of human nature/genetic or if they are consequences of the type of environment the individual is in. Galton believed that intelligence was inherited and it wasn’t because of his “luck” of being born into the right family that he held the social position he did. Hereditary Genius, written in 1869, was Galton’s quest to attempting to discover whether knowledge was innate. Galton focused his study on analyzing trends within families and seeing how talented people usually becomes a pattern in most families. The flaw in this study was that Galton argued heavily for the fact that genetics played a key role in these patterns and failed to recognize those patterns as a result of environmental factors. To further support his idea he went on to conduct additional research through the use of survey methods and twin studies. The survey method was first created and used by Galton. It was essentially a method that used questionnaires on a variety of topics in order to collect various types of information from the individual participating. Through the use of twin studies Galton provided questionnaires to twins and relied heavily on this method to find correlations between twins in …show more content…
Ree and Waldman (2002) studied the influence of genetics on human psychological traits. The research question of their study was whether or not genetics influence our psychological traits such as personality, psychiatric illness, and social attitudes. If it is found that genes are the cause for individual differences among people, it was in the study’s interest to find the genetic variances that account for specific outcomes. The study was conducted by taking samples from affluent Western societies. From this population genetic and environmental influences were observed using twins. The study found that in terms of personality there was a moderate positive correlation with heritability. This means that it is possible, but not certain, that genes can influence personality. In regards to intelligence, the study found that with increasing age, there is a more positive correlation between intelligence levels and heritability. In other words, older adults seem to be more correlated with their families in regard to intelligence than when they are around the age 5-10. The study also took measures on psychological interests such as being realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional and found a relatively small correlation in this area. The measures on psychiatric illnesses showed a strong correlation
nurture debate. The nature vs. nurture debate is essentially the question of whether certain human characteristics, such as intelligence in this case, are part of human nature/genetic or if they are consequences of the type of environment the individual is in. Galton believed that intelligence was inherited and it wasn’t because of his “luck” of being born into the right family that he held the social position he did. Hereditary Genius, written in 1869, was Galton’s quest to attempting to discover whether knowledge was innate. Galton focused his study on analyzing trends within families and seeing how talented people usually becomes a pattern in most families. The flaw in this study was that Galton argued heavily for the fact that genetics played a key role in these patterns and failed to recognize those patterns as a result of environmental factors. To further support his idea he went on to conduct additional research through the use of survey methods and twin studies. The survey method was first created and used by Galton. It was essentially a method that used questionnaires on a variety of topics in order to collect various types of information from the individual participating. Through the use of twin studies Galton provided questionnaires to twins and relied heavily on this method to find correlations between twins in …show more content…
Ree and Waldman (2002) studied the influence of genetics on human psychological traits. The research question of their study was whether or not genetics influence our psychological traits such as personality, psychiatric illness, and social attitudes. If it is found that genes are the cause for individual differences among people, it was in the study’s interest to find the genetic variances that account for specific outcomes. The study was conducted by taking samples from affluent Western societies. From this population genetic and environmental influences were observed using twins. The study found that in terms of personality there was a moderate positive correlation with heritability. This means that it is possible, but not certain, that genes can influence personality. In regards to intelligence, the study found that with increasing age, there is a more positive correlation between intelligence levels and heritability. In other words, older adults seem to be more correlated with their families in regard to intelligence than when they are around the age 5-10. The study also took measures on psychological interests such as being realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional and found a relatively small correlation in this area. The measures on psychiatric illnesses showed a strong correlation