Behavioural genetics

Behavioural genetics studies how genetic variation and environmental factors contribute to differences in behavior among individuals. It uses family, twin, adoption, and molecular studies to investigate these influences.

Heritability: A population statistic estimating how much observed variation in a trait is associated with genetic differences in a particular environment. It quantifies genetic contribution to behavioral variation without measuring how genetically determined an individual is.
Behavior: The actions and responses of organisms, including patterns shaped by biological, psychological, and social factors. Behavior is the outcome whose variation the field seeks to explain.
Psychiatric genetics: The study of genetic contributions to psychiatric disorders and related traits. It applies behavioral-genetic methods to disorders such as schizophrenia and depression.
Genetic determinism: The view that genes rigidly determine an organism's traits or behavior. Behavioral genetics estimates influences; it does not imply that behavior is fixed by genes.
Gene–environment interaction: A pattern in which the effect of genetic variation on a trait depends on environmental conditions, or vice versa. Behavioral genetic effects can change across environments rather than act uniformly.
Genetic variation: Differences in DNA sequences among individuals or populations. Such differences provide the genetic variation examined in behavioral studies.
Developmental psychology: The scientific study of psychological change and continuity across the human lifespan. Genetic and environmental influences on behavior can differ across developmental stages.
Eugenics: A discredited movement seeking to improve human populations through selective reproduction. Its coercive conclusions are not warranted by findings about behavioral variation.
Gene–environment correlation: A relationship in which genetic differences are associated with differences in the environments people experience. People's genetically influenced traits can help shape the settings that influence their behavior.
Phenotype: An organism's observable characteristics, produced through interactions between its genotype and environment. Behavioral traits are phenotypes, not direct readouts of DNA.

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