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18 Genomics and Beyond: Improving Understanding and Analysis of Human (Social, Economic, and Demographic) Behavior--John Hobcraft
18 Genomics and Beyond: Improving Understanding and Analysis of Human (Social, Economic, and Demographic) Behavior--John Hobcraft
Pages 381-400
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From page 381... ...
1104) T here is increasing recognition that real progress in understanding human behavior (or health)
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From page 382... ...
DNA samples, with the intention of enabling social science researchers, subject to suitable disclosure controls, to access information on a significant range of genetic markers (e.g., in the United States, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Fragile Families Survey)
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over time is acknowledged, other approaches are needed that emphasize contingent relationships and pathways or progressions. A perceptive account of the wide range of issues involved in gaining understanding from prospective studies is provided by Rutter (1994)
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. SOME ISSUES IN BEHAVIORAL GENOMICS Until recently most knowledge concerning behavioral genetics came from "quantitative" studies that relied on genetically informative designs (Rutter, Pickles, Murray, and Eaves, 2001)
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A good example of some of these challenges is the study of general cognitive ability, in which quantitative behavioral genetic studies consistently suggest a high heritability, but few genetic markers have been identified and those that have account for quite small fractions of the variation observed (see Plomin, 2003; Plomin and Spinath, 2004; and Plomin, Kennedy, and Craig, 2006, for good accounts of the methods used and problems encountered)
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From page 386... ...
. Moreover, there is increasing evidence of epistatic effects, in which combinations of genetic markers interact together (including regulatory chains or cascades)
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Their choice of stressful events as a likely trigger mechanism was also entirely plausible and evidence-based. Such evidence-based, theoretically informed approaches are more likely to be successful in identifying complex pathways than gene-hunting (although this is one route to identifying candidate genes)
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The neurotransmitters and genes for the receptors involved may be common across species, but the brain areas involved differ, raising unanswered questions about evolution. There are also unanswered questions as to what mechanisms inside the brain result in lasting pair bonding.
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Moreover, the concerns of this chapter to emphasize the need for an integrated approach to alleles, brains, and contexts and their interplays in understanding human behavior (see also Hobcraft, 2006) also point toward greater connections to or borrowing from psychology, since this is one of the few disciplines that engages across this broad range.
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From page 390... ...
. There are also clear links to behavioral genetics here, since most quantitative behavioral genetics analysis is done using structural equation models.
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From page 391... ...
Path dependence through the life course, whereby origins, endowments, and previous experiences shape current behavioral responses to current circumstances, is a crucial component in understanding human behaviors. The role of sequences or packages of experiences over time through developmental chains or cascades is an essential component.
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takes a similar position regarding the genetic linkages to prostate cancer, and a similar case can be made for greater specificity in the genetic pathways to cardiovascular disease and longevity (see also Chapter 1 in this volume and Christensen, Johnson, and Vaupel, 2006)
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I have made a strong case that many social scientists might benefit from thinking more about these interplays and then sifting knowledge and empirically exploring so as to achieve enough simplification to make the challenge practicable. Most studies will address only fragments of the multiple levels and interplays involved, but I would still urge greater attention to pathways within the individual and their interplays with the processes and progressions whereby the individual interplays with multiple contexts over the life course.
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From page 394... ...
. Multilevel in tegrative analyses of human behaviour: Social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches.
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. Quantitative trait loci for IQ and other complex traits: Single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping using pooled DNA and microarrays.
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. The ABC of demographic behaviour: How the interplays of alleles, brains, and contexts over the life course should shape research aimed at understanding population processes.
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. Quantitative trait locus analysis of candidate gene alleles associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
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McGuffin (Eds.) , Behavioral genetics in the postgenomic era.
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. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with reading disabilities: Preliminary genetic findings on the involvement of the ADRA2A gene.
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In National Research Council, Offspring: Human fertility behavior in biodemographic perspective. Committee on Popula tion, K.A.
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