Discussion 2: Genes and Personality

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, listen to the WNYC Studios (2012) podcast Inheritance from http://www.radiolab.org/story/251876-inheritance/ , and read the Hurley (2013) Trait vs. Fate, the Weaver et al. (2004) Epigenetic Programming by Maternal Behavior, and the Webster (2013) blog post. (BOTH ARTICLES ARE PROVIDED IN THE ATTACHMENTS)

 The Great Rat Mother Switcheroo https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/261176-the-great-mother-switcheroo . The recommended sources for this week provide additional information on these topics that may be helpful.

In this week’s required sources, you learned that while genes have a lot to say about who we are, environmental factors, particularly parental behavior, can shape the behavior of offspring on a biochemical level. In your initial post of a minimum of 350 words,

• Briefly describe the research that has been done with rat mothers to illustrate this phenomenon. Be specific about the maternal behaviors and correlated biochemical changes to their offspring. This section demonstrates that you understand what research has been conducted and what the results mean, so be sure to go beyond quoting and paraphrasing to explain and interpret the research as you understand it.


• Explain the implications of the research on parental behavior and environmental factors as they relate to human personality development.


• Based on your understanding of the research cited in the required sources, assess the emerging field of epigenetics, explaining how it is impacting the longstanding nature versus nurture paradigm and evaluating the possible promise and risks with respect to the human experiments.

Be sure to cite all the REQUIRED RESOURCES  in your initial post.

Hurley, D. (2013). Trait vs. fate. Discover 34(4), 48-55. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com

Weaver, I. C. G., Cervoni, N., Champagne, F. A., D’Alessio, A. C, Sharma, S., Seckl, J. R., … Meaney, M. J. (2004). Epigenetic programming by maternal behavior. Nature Neuroscience, 7(8), 847-854. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nn1276

Webster, M. (2013, January 10). The great rat mother switcheroo (Links to an external site.) [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.radiolab.org/story/261176-the-great-mother-switcheroo

WNYC Studios. (2012, November 18). Inheritance (Links to an external site.) [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.radiolab.org/story/251876-inheritance/