PSY 365 Psychology of Diversity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PSY 365 Psychology of Diversity - Essay Example The hypothesis was that there were significant differences in these two influences on prosocial behavior according to age, and that gender differences would also emerge. 682 families participated in the study by answering questionnaires both from the parents and the teachers of the children. The sample was divided into children under 11 and those over 11 years. The results showed no significant difference in effect of genetics and environment according to gender. Individual differences in prosocial behavior emerged as children became adolescents, with environmental effect decreasing and genetics effect increasing. Although this study gathered data from the teachers, this data was only used to compare the ratings of parents with teachers as a way to confirm the level of prosocial behavior of the child. It was not used to compare the effect of shared (home) environment with unshared (school) environment. Two years later Knafo and Plomin (2006) also examined the effect of the environment and genetics on prosocial behavior in young children. This was a longitudinal study at ages 2, 3, 4 and 7 of a sample of 9,424 pairs of twins in the UK. The main hypothesis was that genetics and environment do not continue to affect behavior and that new influences emerge in later years. The study measured the level of prosocial behavior, the shared environment, the unshared environment and the genetic influences. The results of the study indicated that the shared environment had less effect as the children aged, but the genetics had a greater effect. The results also showed that the genetic effects account for both change and continuity in prosocial behavior but the nonshared environments effects account mainly for the changes in prosocial behavior. Although Knafo and Plomin only carried out their study to age 7, both studies found that genetic effects on prosocial behavior increased with age and that the biological influence of genetics increased whereas