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What is the difference between an evolutionary explanation and a functional explanation?
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An evolutionary explanation states what evolved from what. For example, humans evolved from earlier primates and therefore have certain features that we inherited from those ancestors, even if the features are not useful to us today. A functional explanation states why something was advantageous and therefore evolutionarily selected.
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What are the three major versions of monism?
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The three major versions of monism are materialism (everything can be explained in physical terms), mentalism (only minds exist), and identity (the mind and the brain are the same thing).
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What is meant by the "hard problem"?
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The "hard problem" is why minds exist at all in a physical world, why there is such a thing as consciousness, and how it relates to brain activity.
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Suppose you can taste PTC. If your mother can also taste it, what (if anything) can you predict about your father's ability to taste it? If your mother cannot taste it, what (if anything) can you predict about your father's ability to taste it?
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If your mother can taste PTC, we can make no predictions about your father. You may have inherited a gene from your mother that enables you to taste PTC, and because the gene is dominant, you need only one copy of the gene to taste PTC. However, if your mother cannot taste PTC, you must have inherited your ability to taste it from your father, so he must be a taster.
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How does a sex-linked gene differ from a sex-limited gene?
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A sex-linked gene is on a sex chromosome (almost always the X chromosome). A sex-limited gene is on one of the other chromosomes, but is activated by sex hormones and therefore makes its effects evident only in one sex or the other.
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Suppose researchers measure the heritability of intelligence in two populations: one in which everyone shares a good, supportive environment and one in which certain individuals have a much better environment than others do. Which population will show the higher heritability? Why?
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Heritability will be higher in the population who all share a good, supportive environment. The less variation that occurs in quality of environment, the greater the ability of hereditary differences to account for any differences in performance.
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What example illustrates the point that even if some characteristic is highly heritable, a change in the environment may be able to change it?
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Keeping a child with the PKU gene on a strict low-phenylalanine diet prevents the mental retradation that the gene ordinarily causes. The general point is that sometimes a highly heritable condition can be modified environmentally.
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Many people believe the human appendix is useless. Should we therefore expect it to grow smaller from one generation to the next?
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No. Failure to use or need a structure does not make it become smaller in the next generation. The appendix will shrink only if people with a gene for a smaller appendix reproduced more successfully than other people did.
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What are two plausible ways for possible altruistic genes to spread in a population?
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Altruistic genes could spread because they facilitate care for one's kin or because they facilitate exchanges of favors with others (reciprocal altruism)
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Describe reasons biological psychologists conduct much of their research on nonhuman animals.
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Sometimes the mechanisms of behavior are easier to study in a nonhuman species. We are curious about animals for their own sake. We study animals to understand human evolution. Certain procedures are illegal or unethical with humans.
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How does the "minimalist" position differ from the "abolitionist" position?
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A "minimalist" wishes to limit animal research to studies with little discomfort and much potential value. An "abolitionist" wishes to eliminate all animal research, regardless of how the animals are treated or how much value the research might produce.
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Altruistic behavior
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Behavior that benefits someone other than the individual engaging in the behavior
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Artificial selection
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Change in the frequencies of various genes in a population because of a breeder's selection of desired individuals for mating purposes
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Autosomal gene
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A gene on any of the chromosomes other than the sex chromosomes (X and Y)
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Biological psychology
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Study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience
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