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Module 1.1

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AP Exam Tip
A nature-made nature–nurture experiment Identical twins have the same genes. This makes
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
them ideal participants in studies designed to shed light on hereditary and environmental influences on Pay close attention to what your
personality, intelligence, and other traits. Fraternal twins have different genes but often share a similar authors emphasize as they tell the
environment. Twin studies provide a wealth of findings — described in later modules — showing the story of psychology. When they
importance of both nature and nurture.
say the nature–nurture issue is the
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
biggest issue in psychology, that’s
countered that there is nothing in the mind that does not first come in from the external a sign that it’s likely to appear on
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world through the senses. the AP exam.
Insight into how our species’ history sways our behavior arose after 22-year-old Charles
Darwin embarked on a seafaring voyage. During his adventure, Darwin pondered the incred- AP Exam Tip
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ible species variation he encountered, including tortoises on one island that differed from
those on nearby islands. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) explained this diversity by
proposing the evolutionary process of natural selection : From among chance variations, There is a ton of vocabulary in this

unit, and in psychology. Learning
nature selects those traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a specific vocabulary is really not so hard:
environment. Darwin’s principle of natural selec- The secret is to work on it every
tion is still with us 160+ years later as biology’s day. Try flash cards or an online
quizzing memory game. Work
organizing principle. While some theorists used with a study buddy. Impress your
evolutionary principles in discriminatory or racist friends with your new vocabulary.
ways (such as the discredited idea of eugenics, or Just don’t leave it until the night
before the test. If you rehearse the
selectively breeding humans to promote certain vocabulary throughout the unit,
characteristics), evolution also has become an you will do better on the unit test.
important principle for twenty- first-century psy- Don’t just reread the flash cards,
chology. This would surely have pleased Darwin, but rather quiz yourself on them
or paraphrase them in your own
who believed his theory explained not only animal words. The big bonus is that you
structures but also animal behaviors. will also retain far more information
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The nature–nurture issue recurs throughout for the AP exam.
this text, as today’s psychologists continue to explore
the relative contributions of biology and experi-
ence. They ask, for example: How are we humans natural selection the principle

alike because of our shared biology and evolu- that the inherited traits enabling

tionary history? That’s the focus of evolutionary Charles Darwin (1809–1882) Darwin an organism to survive and
argued that natural selection shapes behaviors
psychology And how do we individually differ as well as bodies. reproduce in a particular

.

environment will (in competition
because of our differing genes and environments? with other trait variations) most
That’s the focus of behavior genetics . likely be passed on to succeeding

We can, for example, ask: Are gender differences biologically predisposed or socially generations.
constructed? Is children’s grammar mostly innate or formed by experience? How are evolutionary psychology the
intelligence and personality differences influenced by heredity and by environment? study of the evolution of
Should we treat psychological disorders — depression, for example — as disorders of the behavior and the mind, using
brain, disorders of thought, or both? principles of natural selection.
Again and again, we will see that in contemporary science, the nature–nurture tension behavior genetics the study
dissolves: Nurture works on what nature provides. Moreover, every psychological event (every of the relative power and limits
of genetic and environmental
thought, every emotion) is simultaneously a biological event. Thus, depression can be both influences on behavior.
a brain disorder and a thought disorder.
Interaction of Heredity and Environment Module 1.1 5

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