Genetics, Environment, and Behavior (PDF)

Genetics, Environment, and Behavior: Implications for Educational Policy is a collection of papers from the "Genetic Endowment and Environment in the Determination of Behavior" workshop in New York in October 1971. The book discusses the relationships between genetic characteristics and behavior as being significant in understanding human behavior and learning. The text also considers the different approaches made by geneticists and psychologists on this subject. Several papers review, in terms of both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the role that genetics and the environment play in determining behavior. One paper explains the possible role of genetic determination in behaviors as found in mice and men that show high probabilities of heritabilities. Another paper tackles biochemical genetics and explains the evolution of human behavior by addressing the enzyme variations in human brains and the role of language and culture. The book also cites gene-environment interactions and the variability that can be found in behavior with references to the works of Ginsburg (1967) and Vale and Vale (1969). One paper comments on the future of human behavior genetics, highlighting the distinction between what should happen and what most probably will happen. This text is suitable for sociologists, behavioral scientists, geneticists, educators, and students in psychology, psychiatry, and related branches of medicine.