人类行为遗传学的伦理问题

行为遗传学是试图定位与行为特性有关的特殊基因或基因组及了解基因与环境之间复杂关系的一种研究.行为遗传学是研究正常范围内的非病理变化,与人类疾病遗传学存在差异.行为遗传学研究面临许多伦理学问题,诸如,智力的遗传性,基因能否决定一切,生物社会学与人类文化评估,生命伦理学与行为遗传学的关系等,因此,对行为遗传学研究结果的阐述必须十分谨慎.     

Genetics and human agency: comment on Dar-Nimrod and Heine (2011)

Dar-Nimrod and Heine (2011) decried genetic essentialism without denying the importance of genetics in the genesis of human behavior, and although I agree on both counts, a deeper issue remains unaddressed: how should we adjust our cognitions about our own behavior in light of genetic influence, or is it perhaps not necessary to take genetics into account at all? I suggest that the genetics of behavior does have important implications for how we understand ourselves, the differences among us, and the ethical implications of our actions, but that the usual metric for these considerations, the heritability coefficient, is not the correct one. I propose an alternative.     

Behavioural phenotyping of transgenic mice

This paper reviews the current work on mouse genetics, brain, and behaviour in my laboratory. It starts with an historical account of our research and shows how certain research themes, such as olfaction, learning, social behaviour, and environmental effects in rodents have led to our current research on behavioural phenotyping of inbred, mutant, knockout, and transgenic mice. We are concerned with finding neural and behavioural sequelae to genetic manipulations in mice and use a battery of tests to detect behaviours that are altered in genetically modified mice. In this way we are working to dissociate neural and behavioural effects of different gene manipulations in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases. Sensory, motor, cognitive, affective, and social behaviours may all be affected by gene manipulation, thus careful behavioural techniques, with attention to the mice themselves, the apparatus, and procedure, experimenter variables, and environmental effects are necessary in order to determine a reliable and valid mouse behavioural phenotype. As both the genome and the environment have significant effects on the behavioural phenotype, our future research will utilize an epigenetic approach to examine how environmental cues modulate gene expression in the behavioural phenotyping of transgenic mice.     

The Making of Mind

To understand how human beings come to have the mental faculties that they do, one would do well to consider the making of mind in at least two senses. First, an evolutionary perspective promises to specify what distinguishes Homo sapiens from nonhuman primate kin, and to set whatever is unique against a background of psychological abilities that we share with our ancestral relatives. Second, an account of individuals’ development from infancy onwards should enable one to see how humans’ species-specific biological endowment dovetails with what the environment provides to yield specifically human psychological capacities. In this article, I argue that to arrive at an overarching theoretical explanation, we should set the capacity to identify with the attitudes of other people at the very core of evolutionary and developmental accounts.     

The Nature and Significance of Behavioural Genetic Information

In light of the human genome project, establishing the genetic aetiology of complex human diseases has become a research priority within Western medicine. However, in addition to the identification of disease genes, numerous research projects are also being undertaken to identify genes contributing to the development of human behavioural characteristics, such as cognitive ability and criminal tendency. The permissibility of this research is obviously controversial: will society benefit from this research, or will it adversely affect our conceptions of ourselves and each other? When assessing the permissibility of this research, it is important to consider the nature and deterministic significance of behavioural genetic information. Whilst todate there has been much discussion and debate about the properties of genetic information per se and genetic determinism, this has not been applied to behavioural genetic research and its ethical implications. Therefore, this paper elucidates how behavioural genetic information can be distinguished from other types of genetic and non-genetic information and also synthesises the determinative significance of genetic factors for the development of human behavioural traits. Undertaking this analysis enables the ethical issues raised by this research to be debated in an appropriate context and indicates that separate policy considerations are warranted.

     

发展行为遗传学简介

发展行为遗传学是发展心理学与行为遗传学的交叉学科, 旨在探明遗传与环境对人类心理与行为发展是否存在影响, 如何产生影响, 以及该影响及其作用机制是否随年龄增长而发展变化的问题。该学科与行为遗传学在研究对象、设计和内容等方面存在不同; 开展发展行为遗传学研究需要综合运用心理测量法和行为遗传学研究方法; 未来研究应拓宽和深化候选基因与行为关联性的考察, 并着力探析基因与环境的相互作用机制。     

Cyberpsychology, Human Relationships, and Our Virtual Interiors

Recent research suggests an "Internet paradox"—that a communications technology might reduce social involvement and psychological well–being. In this article I examine some of the limitations of current Internet communication, including those of access, medium, presentation , and choice , that bear on the formation and maintenance of social relationships. I also explore issues central to human meaning in a technological culture—those of the history of the self, of individuality, and of human relationships—and suggest that social forces, technological and otherwise, have increasingly eroded our social interconnectedness and even produced psychological fragmentation. Finally, by considering the psychology of privacy, subjectivity, and intimacy, I look at the historical and developmental processes of internalization by which we construct the "virtual interior" of mind. Understanding this link between human meaning and technological culture, in the form and pattern of our virtual interiors, may help us to see opportunities as well as dangers for the growth of our humanity, our ethics, and our spirituality.     

Verhaltensgenetik

Behavioural genetics has provided ample evidence for the influence of genes on personality traits and psychological disorders. In this review, the methodological strategies of behavioural genetics are described and study results with special relevance for psychotherapists are highlighted.Moreover, some traditional myths and misunderstandings are discussed. In particular, two findings are underscored: While genetic factors substantially contribute to the development of personality traits, environmental influences shared by the members of a family appear to be virtually absent. In contrast, environmental factor specific to an individual seem to play an important role.Second, genes do not only have a direct impact on the development of psychological disorders, but also act in an indirect way by increasing the probability of exposure to stressful life events which in turn function as risk factors for psychological disorders. It is concluded that research should incorporate both genetic and environmental factors to be able to evaluate their relative impact and elucidate the interaction of nature and nurture.     

The narrative self,distributed memory,and evocative objects

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our (unfolding) life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of artifacts in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct.     

L’enfance et l’adolescence in situ : facteurs environnementaux facilitateurs et inhibiteurs de troubles cognitifs et comportementaux

The definition of mental health associates three fundamental variables: biological variables, psychological variables and environmental variables. In this article, we will focus on environmental variables that inhibit and facilitate cognitive and behavioural disorders in childhood and adolescence. Environmental psychology considers the interrelations between human and environment in its spatial, social and chronological dimensions and considers it as a characterized and undissociated system. We will bring to mind social and physical environmental variables with which children and adolescents interact frequently and, through a literature review, we will enlighten environmental variables that are susceptible to induce behavioural disorders and psychological variables that modulate children's and adolescent's relations to environment. We then suggest possible outcomes of this approach in clinical practice as well as in terms of therapeutic applications in child psychology and psychiatry. Finally, we evoke the necessity of taking in account neurobiological fields in order to outline a model of human development integrating the three variables that define mental health.     

Coping with Genetic Risk: Living with Huntington Disease (HD)

Rapid developments in genetics suggest that more and more people will be identified ‘at risk’ for common illnesses. Genetic discoveries have the potential to improve disease outcomes, but they also highlight gaps in our knowledge about patient-level factors such as how individuals respond to a genetic threat to their health and how they cope with that threat. There have been few empirical applications of psychological theories to understand genetic testing decisions and outcomes, although there have been calls for this approach. Drawing upon interviews with individuals at risk for (or with) Huntington disease (HD), this study adopts a stress and coping framework to explore how people cope with genetic illness in the family. Qualitative data analyses revealed that coping strategies were dynamic and varied but could be classified as 1) primary control coping, 2) secondary control coping and 3) social comparison strategies. Important distinctions were observed in coping strategies among those who had undergone genetic testing and received a test result, those who remained at risk, and those affected with HD, along with their caregivers. Implications for clinical practice and genetics health services are discussed.     

Two Philosophical Problems in the Study of Happiness

In this paper two philosophical issues are discussed that hold special interest for empirical researchers studying happiness. The first issue concerns the question of how the psychological notion(s) of happiness invoked in empirical research relates to those traditionally employed by philosophers. The second concerns the question of how we ought to conceive of happiness, understood as a purely psychological phenomenon. With respect to the first, I argue that 'happiness', as used in the philosophical literature, has three importantly different senses that are often confused. Empirical research on happiness concerns only one of these senses, and serious misunderstandings about the significance of empirical results can arise from such confusion. I then argue that the second question is indeed philosophical and that, in order to understand the nature of (what I call) psychological happiness, we need first to determine what a theory of happiness is supposed to do: what are our theoretical and practical interests in the notion of happiness? I sketch an example of how such an inquiry might proceed, and argue that this approach can shed more light on the nature and significance of happiness (and related mental states) than traditional philosophical methods.     

Intelligence: genetics, genes, and genomics

More is known about the genetics of intelligence than about any other trait, behavioral or biological, which is selectively reviewed in this article. Two of the most interesting genetic findings are that heritability of intelligence increases throughout the life span and that the same genes affect diverse cognitive abilities. The most exciting direction for genetic research on intelligence is to harness the power of the Human Genome Project to identify some of the specific genes responsible for the heritability of intelligence. The next research direction will be functional genomics--for example, understanding the brain pathways between genes and intelligence. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) will integrate life sciences research on intelligence; bottom-up molecular biological research will meet top-down psychological research in the brain.     

Selfishness,Altruism, and our Future Selves

In this article, I defend the thesis that selfishness and altruism can be intrapersonal. In doing so, I argue that the notions of intrapersonal altruism and selfishness usefully pick out behavioural patterns and have predictive value. I also argue that my thesis helps enrich our understanding of the prudential, and can subsume some interesting work in economic and psychological theory.     

Nature, Nurture, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

This commentary shows that Joseph's (this issue) review of the genetics of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) contains errors of scientific logic and ignores much relevant research. Thus, we reject his conclusions. We also reject Joseph's approach of pitting nature against nurture as if these two facets of human life are at odds with one another. Instead, most scientists who study the genetics of psychiatric disorders embrace the idea that these disorders are influenced by both genes and environmental factors. In fact, the twin studies criticized by Joseph provide the strongest evidence that environmental risk factors play a substantial role in the etiology of ADHD. They do so by showing that when one identical twin has ADHD the risk to the co-twin is much less than 100%, a fact which can only be explained by environmental risk factors. We also reject the idea that genetic studies have hindered psychosocial research, stigmatized patients, or promoted psychopharmacologic treatments. Genetic studies have aimed at solving one part of the puzzle of ADHD. By testing a parsimonious theory, they have set the stage for gene discovery and the delineation of how genes and environment combine to cause this impairing disorder.     

The functional‐cognitive framework as a tool for accelerating progress in cognitive neuroscience: On the benefits of bridging rather than reducing levels of analyses

The subject matter of neuroscience research is complex, and synthesising the wealth of data from this research to better understand mental processes is challenging. A useful strategy, therefore, may be to distinguish explicitly between the causal effects of the environment on behaviour (i.e. functional analyses) and the mental processes that mediate these effects (i.e. cognitive analyses). In this article, we describe how the functional‐cognitive (F‐C) framework can accelerate cognitive neuroscience and also advance a functional treatment of brain activity. We first highlight that cognitive neuroscience can particularly benefit from the F‐C approach by providing an alternative to the problematic practice of reducing cognitive constructs to behavioural and/or neural proxies. Next, we outline how functional (behaviour–environment) relations can serve as a bridge between cognitive and neural processes by restoring mental constructs to their original role as heuristic tools. Finally, we give some examples of how both cognitive neuroscience and traditional functional approaches can mutually benefit from the F‐C framework.     

Keeping the “cognitive” in cognitive neuroscience, the “affective” in affective neuroscience, and the “behavioral” in behavioral neuroscience: The CABN mission for the next five years

The fields of cognitive, affective, and behavioral neuroscience have been with us for many years now, and have served to spawn an ever growing body of research that has helped to clarify the mechanisms by which the brain gives rise to the diverse processes that govern our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. These fields of research have grown exponentially as more and more tools have become available for invasive and noninvasive measures of brain function in both humans and animals, and as information about the human and animal genomes has increased. These advances in neurosciencebased tools have clearly advanced our knowledge and understanding of brain—behavior relationships. However, there is also a danger that lurks in the shadows of these methodological and empirical advances. This danger is that the enticement of understanding neural processes sometimes leads us to forget about the exact phenomena that we ultimately wish to understand and explain—namely, cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes. What do I mean by danger? I mean the concern that we often seem to prioritize the sophistication of our neural and genetic tools and theorizing over our psychological tools and theorizing, and that we may overlook the absence of linkage between neural (e.g., imaging results at a range of levels) or genetic findings and well—grounded psychological theories about specific cognitive, affective, or behavioral mechanisms. In other words, we can be seduced by the “call of the brain mechanism,” without a reminder of the phenomena we wish to explain.     

Genes, race, and psychology in the genome era: an introduction

The mapping of the human genome has reawakened interest in the topic of race and genetics, especially the use of genetic technology to examine racial differences in complex outcomes such as health and intelligence. Advances in genomic research challenge psychology to address the myriad conceptual, methodological, and analytical issues associated with research on genetics and race. In addition, the field needs to understand the numerous social, ethical, legal, clinical, and policy implications of research in this arena. Addressing these issues should not only benefit psychology but could also serve to guide such thought in other fields, including molecular biology. The purpose of this special issue is to begin a discussion of this issue of race and genetics within the field of psychology. Several scholars who work in the fields of genetics, race, or related areas were invited to write (or had previously submitted) articles sharing their perspectives.     

Coping with a changing soundscape: avoidance,adjustments and adaptations

Since the industrial age, background anthropogenic noise has become a pervasive feature of many habitable environments. This relatively recent environmental feature can be particularly challenging for organisms that use acoustic forms of communication due to its propensity for masking and decreasing the potential acoustic space of signals. Furthermore, anthropogenic noise may affect biological processes including animal interactions, physiological and behavioural responses to stimuli and cognitive development. However, animals’ cognitive abilities may enable them to cope with high levels of anthropogenic noise through learning, the employment of acoustic and behavioural flexibility as well as the use of multi-modal sensory systems. We are only just beginning to understand how neural structures, endocrine systems and behaviour are mechanistically linked in these scenarios, providing us with information we can use to mitigate deleterious effects of pervasive noise on wildlife, along with highlighting the remarkable adaptability of animals to an increasingly anthropogenic world. In this review, I will focus mainly on birds, due to the amount of literature on the topic, and survey recent advancements made in two main spheres: (1) how anthropogenic noise affects cognitive processes and (2) how cognition enables animals to cope with increasingly noisy environments. I will be highlighting current gaps in our knowledge, such as how noise might impact behavioural traits such as predation, as well as how noise causes physical damage to neurotransmitters and affects stress levels, in order to direct future studies on this topic.     

DNA

The authors predict that in a few years, many areas of psychology will be awash in specific genes responsible for the widespread influence of genetics on behavior. As the focus shifts from finding genes (genomics) to understanding how genes affect behavior (behavioral genomics), it is important for the future of psychology as a science that pathways between genes and behavior be examined not only at the molecular biological level of cells or the neuroscience level of the brain but also at the psychological level of analysis. After a brief overview of quantitative genetic research, the authors describe how genes that influence complex traits like behavioral dimensions and disorders in human and nonhuman animals are being found. Finally, the authors discuss behavioral genomics and predict that DNA will revolutionize psychological research and treatment early in the 21st century.