2010

Friday August 12^th: GWAS and intelligence

• Presenter Mark Adams and Gary Lewis
• Papers
  • Davies G et al. Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic. Molecular Psychiatry
  • Visscher PM, Yang J, Goddard ME. A Commentary on ‘Common SNPs Explain a Large Proportion of the Heritability for Human Height’ by Yang et al. (2010). Twin Research and Human Genetics

Friday August 5 ^th: Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology

• Presenter Stuart Ritchie
• Papers
  • Bolhuis et al., 2011 Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology

Friday July 29 ^th: What have GWAS told us about for complex traits?

• Presenter Timothy Bates
• Papers
  • E. Turkheimer (preprint) Genome Wide Association Studies of Behavior are Social Science
  • J. Yang, B. Benyamin, B. P. McEvoy, S. Gordon, A. K. Henders, D. R. Nyholt, P. A. Madden, A. C. Heath, N. G. Martin, G. W. Montgomery, M. E. Goddard and P. M. Visscher. (2010). Common SNPs explain a large proportion of the heritability for human height. Nature Genetics, 42, 565-9.
  • P. M. Visscher, M. E. Goddard, E. M. Derks and N. R. Wray. (2011). Evidence-based psychiatric genetics, AKA the false dichotomy between common and rare variant hypotheses. Molecular Psychiatry [http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/mp.2011.65]
  • J. Yang, S. H. Lee, M. E. Goddard and P. M. Visscher. (2011). GCTA: a tool for genome-wide complex trait analysis. American Journal of Human Genetics, 88, 76-82.
  • J. Yang, T. A. Manolio, L. R. Pasquale, E. Boerwinkle, N. Caporaso, J. M. Cunningham, M. de Andrade, B. Feenstra, E. Feingold, M. G. Hayes, W. G. Hill, M. T. Landi, A. Alonso, G. Lettre, P. Lin, H. Ling, W. Lowe, R. A. Mathias, M. Melbye, E. Pugh, M. C. Cornelis, B. S. Weir, M. E. Goddard and P. M. Visscher. (2011). Genome partitioning of genetic variation for complex traits using common SNPs. Nature Genetics, 43, 519-25.
  • J. Yang, M. N. Weedon, S. Purcell, G. Lettre, K. Estrada, C. J. Willer, A. V. Smith, E. Ingelsson, J. R. O'Connell, M. Mangino, R. Magi, P. A. Madden, A. C. Heath, D. R. Nyholt, N. G. Martin, G. W. Montgomery, T. M. Frayling, J. N. Hirschhorn, M. I. McCarthy, M. E. Goddard and P. M. Visscher. (2011). Genomic inflation factors under polygenic inheritance. European journal of human genetics : EJHG, 19, 807-12.

Friday July 16 ^th Heritability and complexity

• Presenters Gary Lewis and Tim Bates
• Paper L. G. Conway, 3rd, D. P. Dodds, K. H. Towgood, S. McClure and J. M. Olson. (2011). The biological roots of complex thinking: are heritable attitudes more complex? Journal of Personality, 79, 101-34.

Friday July 8 ^th Why (distally) are you so angry?

• Presenters Gary Lewis and Tim Bates
• Paper : A. Sell, J. Tooby and L. Cosmides. (2009). Formidability and the logic of human anger. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 15073-8.
• replication study

Friday June 17 ^th Body image

• Presenter Rhona Kennedy

Friday June 10 ^th Field trip

Friday June 3 ^rd: "Do you often appear miserable or unhappy?"

• Presenter Clare Nicholson
• Paper Henderson, M., Hotopf, M., & Leon, D. A. (2009). Childhood temperament and long-term sickness absence in adult life. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 194(3), 220-223. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.107.044271
• Data Supplementary tables

Thursday May 26** Special meta-edition: 5-HTTLPR and the amygdala

• Presenters Gary Lewis and Mark Adams
• Paper Munafò, Brown, Hariri. 2008. Serotonin Transporter (5-HTTLPR) Genotype and Amygdala Activation: A Meta-Analysis. BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2008;63:852– 857

Friday May 13 ^th: Double header: genetic basis of religion and personality fitness

• Presenters Gary Lewis and Mark Adams

Friday May 06 Evolution of prosociality

• Presenter Gary Lewis
• Paper M Chudek, J Henrich. Culture-gene coevolution, norm-psychology and the emergence of human prosociality, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Volume 15, Issue 5, May 2011, Pages 218-226, ISSN 1364-6613, DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2011.03.003.

Friday Apr 15 Spatial variation and limited phenotype-environment matching drive the evolution of boldness, dominance, and sociability

• Presenter Alexander Weiss

Friday Apr 8 Sociability and fitness

• Presenter Rhona Kennedy
• Paper Cote, J., Dreiss, A., & Clobert, J. (2008). Social personality trait and fitness. Proc B 275(1653), 2851-2858.

Friday Apr 1: Updating faith and worship

• Presenter Timothy Bates

Friday Mar 25 You're a Good Man, Capability Brown: Capability models of class

• Presenter Timothy Bates
• Paper Alkire, S. The capability approach to the quality of life.

Friday Mar 18th Field Trip to Living Links

• Field station, research projects.

Friday Mar 11th Evolution and body dissatisfaction

• Presenter Gary Lewis
• Paper CJ Ferguson, B Winegard, BM Winegard. 2011. Who Is the Fairest One of All? How Evolution Guides Peer and Media Influences on Female Body Dissatisfaction, Review of General Psychology 15

Friday Mar 4th Q: Are humans still evolving? A: Yes.

• Presenters Vanessa Wilson and Mark Adams
• Paper D Nettle. Evolutionary perspectives on the Five-Factor Model of personality. In Buss & Hawley (eds.) The Evolution of Personality and Individual Differences.
• Documentary Are We Still Evolving?

Friday Feb 25th The trouble with saying 'no'

• Presenter Kaisa Wilson
• Paper Frith H, Kitzinger C. Reformulating Sexual Script Theory : Developing a Discursive Psychology of Sexual Negotiation. Theory Psychology 2001 11: 209 DOI: 10.1177/0959354301112004

Friday Feb 18 Top 10 issues in social science

• Nature's list
• Commentary
• Our top10

Friday Feb 11 Genetic, socioeconomic, intelligence, and health gradients

• Presenters Gary Lewis and Mark Adams
• Papers Moffitt, Caspi et al. A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. PNAS; Tucker-Drob et al. Emergence of a Gene × Socioeconomic Status Interaction on Infant Mental Ability Between 10 Months and 2 Years. Psych Sci.

Friday Feb 4: Creativity

• Presenter Stuart Ritchie
• Paper Dietrich. 2007. Who’s afraid of a cognitive neuroscience of creativity?. Methods 42. 22-27

Friday Jan 21 Personality Correlates of Decision Making under Risk

• Presenter Panagiotis Papaeconomou

Friday Dec 10: Feedback circuits – Genetics of susceptibility to depression

• Presenter: Ana Maria Fernández
• Paper Pezawas et al 2005. 5-HTTLPR polymorphism impacts human cingulate-amygdala interactions: a genetic susceptibility mechanism for depression. Nature Neuroscience 8, 828-834

Friday Dec 3: The base and apex of needs: evolutionary revisions of Maslow's hierarchy

• Presenter: Mark Adams and Gary Lewis
• Paper Kenrick, et al. Renovating the Pyramid of Needs : Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations. Perspectives on Psychological Science 2010 5: 292 DOI: 10.1177/1745691610369469

Friday November 26 Genetics of personality and personality disorders

• Presenter: Vanessa Wilson
• Paper: Distel MA et al, (2009) The Five-Factor Model of Personality and Borderline Personality Disorder: A Genetic Analysis of Comorbidity, Biological Psychiatry 66, 1131-1138 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.07.017

Friday November 19: Orchid people: resilience, G × E, and phenotypic plasticity

• Dobbs, D The Science of Success, The Atlantic
• Genetics of Resilience page

Friday November 12: Mendelian Randomization

• Presenter: Timothy Bates
• Paper: George Davey Smith. Mendelian Randomization for Strengthening Causal Inference in Observational Studies: Application to Gene × Environment Interactions. Perspectives on Psychological Science 2010 5: 527-545, doi:10.1177/1745691610383505
• Page on Mendelian Randomization

Friday November 5th: Theories of the Big 5

• Presenter Jason Major
• DeYoung, CG (2010) Toward a theory of the Big Five. Psychological Inquiry, 21, 26-33.

Friday October 29th: Reproductive strategies and conspecific monitoring

• Presenter: Stuart Ritchie
• Kurzban, Dukes, and Weeden (2010) Sex, drugs and moral goals: reproductive strategies and views about recreational drugs. Proc. R. Soc. B 277:3501-3508; doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0608

Friday October 22nd: Nonhuman primate theory of mind

• Presenter: Vanessa Wilson
• Theory of Mind Page
• Call and Tomasello (2008) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. TICS.
• Herrmann et al (2010) Differences in the Cognitive Skills of Bonobos and Chimpanzees . PLoS One

Friday October 8th: Why are bodies symmetrical, and why do symmetrical bodies have smarter brains?

• Presenter: Timothy Bates
• Symmetry page
• pdf

When: March 5, 2010

What: Vazire. Who knows what about a person? The self–other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. J Pers Soc Psychol (2010) vol. 98 (2) pp. 281-300 (| pdf)

Question: are self- and peer-ratings capturing different things?

Who: Mark & Alex

Moral fixation

When: March 12, 2010

What: Rozin, P., Haidt, J. and Fincher, K. (2009). Psychology. From oral to moral. <i>Science</i>, <b>323</b>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1170492">1179-80</a>.

Who: Round-table discussion

Individual quality

When: March 19, 2010

What: Wilson and Nussey. What is individual quality? an evolutionary perspective. Trends Ecol Evol (2009) [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.002">10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.002 | doi] (| pdf)

Who: Mark

Pass Go, collect $200

When: March 26, 2010

What: The role of genes in determining social status under different regimes of inequality and social mobility.

• FMRI and cognitive function: (reliably) different regions for different people
• Personality and personality disorders
• The top 10 issues in Social Science