A genetic predisposition is a genetic characteristic which influences the possible

phenotypic In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...

development of an individual organism within a species or population under the influence of environmental conditions. In medicine, genetic susceptibility to a

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

refers to a genetic predisposition to a health problem, which may eventually be triggered by particular environmental or lifestyle factors, such as

tobacco smoking Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and ingesting the resulting smoke. The smoke may be inhaled, as is done with cigarettes, or simply released from the mouth, as is generally done with pipes and cigars. The practice is belie ...

diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

Genetic test Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...

ing is able to identify individuals who are genetically predisposed to certain diseases.

Behavior

Predisposition is the capacity humans are born with to learn things such as language and concept of self. Negative environmental influences may block the predisposition (ability) one has to do some things.

Behaviors Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as we ...

displayed by animals can be influenced by genetic predispositions. Genetic predisposition towards certain human behaviors is scientifically investigated by attempts to identify patterns of human behavior that seem to be invariant over long periods of time and in very different cultures. For example, philosopher

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields rel ...

has proposed that humans are genetically predisposed to have a

theory of mind In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them (that is, surmising what is happening in their mind). This includes the knowledge that others' mental states may be different fro ...

because there has been

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

ary selection for the human ability to adopt the

intentional stance The intentional stance is a term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett for the level of abstraction in which we view the behavior of an entity in terms of mental properties. It is part of a theory of mental content proposed by Dennett, which provid ...

. The ''intentional stance'' is a useful behavioral strategy by which humans assume that others have

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for vario ...

s like their own. This assumption allows one to predict the behavior of others based on personal knowledge. In 1951,

Hans Eysenck Hans Jürgen Eysenck (; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a German-born British psychologist who spent his professional career in Great Britain. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, although he worked on othe ...

and Donald Prell published an experiment in which identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins, ages 11 and 12, were tested for neuroticism. It is described in detail in an article published in the '' Journal of Mental Science''. in which Eysenck and Prell concluded that, "The factor of neuroticism is not a statistical artifact, but constitutes a biological unit which is inherited as a whole....neurotic Genetic predisposition is to a large extent hereditarily determined." E. O. Wilson's book on sociobiology and his book

Consilience In science and history, consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are ...

discuss the idea of genetic predisposition of behaviors. The field of

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evol ...

explores the idea that certain behaviors have been selected for during the course of evolution.

Genetic discrimination in health insurance in US

In US, the

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (, GINA ), is an Act of Congress in the United States designed to prohibit some types of genetic discrimination. The act bars the use of genetic information in health insurance and employ ...

, which was signed into law by President Bush on May 21, 2008, prohibits discrimination in employment and health insurance based on genetic information.

References

# The results of this survey ar
discussed here
(January 20, 1998). #
summary
of U.S.A. executive orders and proposed legislation is compiled by the National Center for Genome Resources. # ''The Intentional Stance'' (MIT Press; Reprint edition 1989) ()

External links

Genetic discrimination fact sheet from the National Human Genome Research Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Genetic Predisposition Genetics Behavioural sciences

Behavior

Genetic discrimination in health insurance in US

See also

References

External links