preview

Outline And Evaluate The Extent To Which Genetic Factors Affect Iq

Satisfactory Essays

The biological approach in psychology states that behaviour is determined by a genetic component which results in a particular trait or behaviour. A topic area within psychology where this can be investigated is the heritability of IQ, it is suggested that genetic influence is the only factor to consider when investigating IQ, however others have suggested that other factors may play a role in determining IQ.
One way to determine the extent to which genetic influences affect IQ is via twin studies, in these studies monozygotic twins (who share 100% genetic information) are compared with dizygotic twins (who share only 50% genetic information), in both sets of twins the environment is constant, as a result the only factor affecting IQ is the genetics shared, therefore allowing cause and effect to be established. (Tzaskowski 2014) conducted an experiment using 6702 pairs of twins to compare g scores and DNA markers, from the experiment is was found that twins estimated heritability’s increased from 0.35 to 0.48 from ages 7 – 12, this shows that there is a strong genetic link between heritability and IQ from childhood to adulthood.
Although in the experiment there was a large sample the countries the participants were from were all western, this could possibly be why there were moderate correlations found. (Yu Yong …show more content…

In addition, the social learning theory suggests that the environment is an important factor to consider as there is a shared environment between the MZ twins and also an unshared environment, therefore this could result in the twins experiencing different stimuli throughout their childhood, this could be an explanation as to why the concordance rates are not 100% as would be expected in MZ

Get Access