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| behavioral genetics | an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with the genetic bases of behavior and personality |
| evolutionary psychology | a field of psychology emphasizing evolutionary mechanisms that may help explain human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behavior |
| sociobiology | an interdisciplinary field of study that emphasizes evolutionary explanations of social behavior in animals, including humans |
| genes | the functional units of heredity; they are composed of DNA and specify the structure of proteins |
| chromosomes | within every body cell, rod-shaped structures that carry genes |
| DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) | the chromosomal molecule that transfers genetic characteristics by way of coded instructions for the structure of proteins |
| genome | the full set of genes in each cell of an organism (with the exception of the sperm and egg cells) |
| linkage studies | studies that look for patterns of inheritance of genetic markers in large families in which a particular condition is common; the markers consist of DNA segments that vary considerably among individuals and that have known locations on chromosomes |
| evolution | a change in gene frequencies within a population over many generations; a mechanism by which genetically influenced characteristics of a population change |
| natural selection | the evolutionary process in which individuals with genetically influences traits that are adaptive in a particular environment tend to survive and reproduce in greater numbers than do other individuals; as a result, their traits become more common in the population |
| language | a system that combines meaningless elements such as sounds or gestures to form structured utterances that convey meaning |
| heritability | a statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait within a group that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals in the group |
| monozygotic twins | twins that develop when a fertilized egg divides into two parts that develop into separate embryos |
| dizygotic twins | twins that develop from two separate eggs fertilized by different sperm; they are no more genetically alike than are any other pair of siblings |
| set point | the genetically influenced weight range for an individual, thought to bemaintained by a biological mechanism that regulates food intake, fat reserves and metabolism |
| intelligence quotient (IQ) | a mesure of intelligence originally computed by dividing a person's mental age by his or her chronological age and multiplying the result by 100; it is now derived from norms provided for standardized intelligence tests |
