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of junk foods and often inactive lifestyles. The stress response that helped our ancestors
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TEACHING THE AP TIP
The testing effect is robust—
self-testing and rehearsing over
time lead to better retention. Ensure
that students take advantage of the
Check Your Understanding features
throughout the text. You can also
utilize the assessment suggestions
provided throughout the text.
TEACH 1.1-2
Dig Deeper
You will notice that DNA and
occasionally chromosomes come up
at several points in this module. These
concepts are important in explaining
how behavior geneticists explain
individual differences. However,
specific information about genetics,
such as genotype, phenotype, DNA,
chromosomes, and recessive and Copyright ©
dominant gene expression, is beyond
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the scope of the AP exam. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman
03_myersAPpsychology4e_28116_ch01_002_163.indd
8 Unit 1 Biological Bases of Behavior
03_HammerTE4e_47547_ch01_2a_163_4pp.indd 8 07/02/24
AP Exam Tip
®
escape temporary, mortal threats (That’s a tiger in the grass!) now threatens our health, as
we experience the long-term stressors of modern living (That exam is tomorrow! The traffic is
Memory research reveals a testing
effect: We retain information much making me late!).
better if we actively retrieve it by
self-testing and rehearsing. To Evolutionary Psychology Today
bolster your learning and memory,
take advantage of the self-testing Darwin’s theory of evolution has become one of biology’s fundamental organizing princi-
ples and lives on in the second Darwinian revolution: the application of evolutionary princi-
opportunities you will find through-
out this text. These Check Your ples to psychology. In concluding On the Origin of Species, Darwin (1859, p. 346) anticipated
Understanding sections will appear
periodically throughout each mod- this development, foreseeing “open fields for far more important researches. Psychology
ule. You can check your answers will be based on a new foundation.”
to the Examine the Concept review In modules to come, we address questions that intrigue evolutionary psychologists:
questions in Appendix C. Why do infants start to fear strangers about the time they become mobile? Why do more
people develop a specific phobia in response to spiders, snakes, and heights than to modern
threats, such as guns? And why do women tend to be choosier than men when selecting
sexual partners?
& Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
®
AP Science Practice Check Your Understanding
Examine the Concept Apply the Concept
▶ ▶Explain the principle of natural selection. ▶ ▶Imagine that a futuristic scientist wanted to breed humans
Worth Publishers.
to favor particular behavioral traits. How would the scientist go
about it? Why might this prove a greater challenge than breeding
less complex mammals?
Answers to the Examine the Concept questions can be found in Appendix C at the end of the book.
Behavior Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences
1.1-2 How do behavior geneticists explain our individual differences?
While evolutionary psychologists tend to focus on human similarities, behavior genet-
icists explore the genetic and environmental roots of human differences. Our shared
brain architecture predisposes all of us humans to some common behavioral tendencies.
A Thousand Words Photography by Erica Comer Whether we live in the Arctic or in the tropics, we sense the world, develop language,
and feel hunger through identical mechanisms. We prefer sweet tastes to sour. We divide
Bedford, Freeman &
the color spectrum into similar colors. And we feel drawn to behaviors that produce and
protect offspring.
Our human family shares not only a common biological heritage — cut us and we
bleed — but also common social behaviors. Whether we’re named Gonzales, Nkomo,
The nurture of nature Parents Smith, or Wong, we start fearing strangers at about 8 months, and as adults we prefer
everywhere wonder: Will my baby grow the company of people with attitudes and attributes similar to our own. As members of
up to be agreeable or aggressive?
Cautious or courageous? Successful one species, we affiliate, conform, return favors, punish offenses, organize hierarchies
or struggling? What comes built
of status, and grieve a child’s death. A visitor from outer space could drop in anywhere
in, and what is nurtured — and and find humans dancing and feasting, singing and worshiping, playing sports and
how? Research reveals that nature
games, laughing and crying, living in families and forming groups. We are the leaves of
and nurture together shape our
development — every step of the way. one tree.
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