Heritability

Peter H Schonemann, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

Published online: July 2006

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0005409

Heritability coefficients (‘heritabilities’) are variance ratios intended to measure the relative contribution of genetic versus environmental factors to physical and psychological individual differences.

Keywords: nature/nurture; twin research; IQ controversy; behavior genetics; biometrics; psychometrics; intelligence tests; g; racism

 References
    Fisher RA (1918) The correlation between relatives on the supposition of Mendelian inheritance. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 52: 399–433.
    book Herrnstein RJ and Murray C (1994) "The Bell Curve". Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York, NY: The Free Press.
    Holzinger K (1929) The relative effect of nature and nurture influences on twin differences. Journal of Educational Psychology 20: 241–248.
    book Jensen A (1980) Bias in Mental Testing. New York, NY: The Free Press.
    Lush JL (1940) Intra-sire correlations or regressions on dam as a method of estimating heritability of characteristics. Proceedings of the American Society for Animal Production 33: 293–301. [Reprinted in: Hill WG (ed.) Quantitative Genetics, Part I: Explanation and Analysis of Continuous Variation. New York, NY: Von Nostrand Reinhold Company.]
    book Plomin R (1994) "Nature, nurture, and development". In: Sternberg RJ (ed.) Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence, vol. 2, pp. 754–764. New York, NY: Macmillan
    Schonemann PH (1997) On models and muddles of heritability. Genetica 99: 2–3, 97–108.
    book Wright S (1969) "Evolution and the Genetics of Populations", vol. 2: The Theory of Gene Frequencies. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
 Further Reading
    book Hill WG (ed.) (1984) Quantitative Genetics, Part I, Part II. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1984.
    book Hirsch J (Guest editor) (1997) "Special issue: Uses and Abuses of Genetics in Society". Genetica 99 (2–3).
    book Sternberg RJ (ed.) (1994) Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence, 2 volumes. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1994.

Related Sub-Topics:

Molecular Evolution | Population Structure and Genetics | Statistical Methodology in Genetics | Inter-Individual Variation and Polymorphism
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Article Title: Heritability
 
How to Cite close
Schonemann, Peter H(Jul 2006) Heritability. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0005409]