Multiple choice quiz

Take the quiz test your understanding of the key concepts covered in the chapter. Try testing yourself before you read the chapter to see where your strengths and weaknesses are, then test yourself again once you’ve read the chapter to see how well you’ve understood.

1. Biological approaches to personality are relevant to which underlying personality influences?

  1. Genetics/Nature
  2. Environment/Nurture
  3. Both a and b
  4. Neither a nor b

Answer:

c. Both a and b

2. Natural selection acts directly upon …

  1. the genotype
  2. the phenotype
  3. individual-level fitness
  4. group-level fitness

Answer:

a. the phenotype

3. Jessie and Joh have differing views about the evolution of personality. Jessie thinks that both low and high levels of every personality trait can be adaptive, while Joh thinks that a trait can be either adaptive or non-adaptive depending on the context. These two views are known as …

  1. selective neutrality and antagonistic pleiotropy
  2. antagonistic pleiotropy and environmental heterogeneity
  3. environmental heterogeneity and frequency dependent selection
  4. frequency dependent selection and life history theory

Answer:

b. antagonistic pleiotropy and environmental heterogeneity

4. The Hawk-Dove game is a classic demonstration of …

  1. antagonistic pleiotropy
  2. social environmental heterogeneity
  3. frequency-dependent selection
  4. b and c

Answer:

d. b and c

5. The two discrete units of inheritance discovered by Mendel were …

  1. genes
  2. alleles
  3. chromosomes
  4. base pairs

Answer:

b. alleles

6. Which of the following pairs share 50% of their genes?

  1. Any two siblings
  2. A pair of dyzogotic twins
  3. A pair of monozygotic twins
  4. a and b

Answer:

b. A pair of dyzogotic twins 

7. Imagine you were conducting a twin adoption study of personality, and you found a trait that was essentially uncorrelated among all twin pairs (including monozygotic and dizygotic twins). Which of the following would you conclude?

  1. Variation in the trait is largely owing to genetic influences
  2. Variation in the trait is largely owing to shared environmental influences
  3. Variation in the trait is largely owing to unique environmental influences
  4. Variation in the trait is owing roughly equally to genetic factors and unique environmental influences

Answer:

c. Variation in the trait is largely owing to unique environmental influences

8. What influences on personality does the ‘shared environment’ represent?

  1. Events that siblings experience within the family home (e.g. parenting)
  2. Events and experiences that make siblings more similar in their personality
  3. Events that siblings experience outside the family home (e.g. schooling)
  4. Events and experiences that make siblings more different in their personality

Answer:

b. Events and experiences that make siblings more similar in their personality

9. Which of the following methods is most closely related to behavioral genetic research?

  1. Candidate gene approach
  2. Genomewide scan
  3. Genomewide complex trait analysis
  4. All of the above

Answer:

c. Genomewide complex trait analysis

10. The so-called ‘missing heritability problem’ may be owing to …

  1. non-additive genetic effects
  2. a massively polygentic basis to traits
  3. a major role for rare genetic variances
  4. any of the above

Answer:

d. Any of the above