Categories › Heritability & individual differences
Category
Heritability & individual differences
Population-dependent genetic variance, polygenicity, gene–environment interplay, family designs, and the distinction between prediction and mechanism.
Terms
HeritabilityThe proportion of observed phenotypic variance statistically associated with genetic variance in a specified population and environment; not a measure of immutability or an individual percentage.
SNP heritabilityThe fraction of phenotypic variance statistically associated with assayed common genetic variants under a specified model.
Missing heritabilityThe gap between heritability suggested by family-based designs and variance accounted for by identified or measured genetic variation.
PolygenicityThe property of complex traits being influenced by very many variants of individually small effect rather than a few deterministic variants.
Polygenic scoreA weighted aggregate of many genetic associations used for probabilistic prediction of a trait or outcome.
Gene–environment interactionDependence of genetic effects on environmental conditions, or environmental effects on genotype, with substantial design and replication challenges.
Gene–environment correlationCorrelation between genetic differences and environmental exposures because inherited traits can influence the environments people receive, evoke, or seek.
Passive / evocative / active rGEThree pathways for gene–environment correlation: parental transmission of correlated environments, elicited responses from others, and active environment selection.
Genetic nurtureEffects in which parental genotypes predict offspring outcomes partly through environments parents create, including contributions from nontransmitted variants.
Dynastic effectsMultigenerational social or environmental pathways associated with ancestral genotype that can contribute to observed genetic associations.
Within-family designComparisons among relatives that help reduce confounding from ancestry structure, assortative mating, and some family-level environmental pathways.
Assortative matingNonrandom partner similarity that changes genetic and environmental covariance structures across generations.
Population stratificationPopulation structure correlated with both genotype frequencies and outcomes, capable of producing associations unrelated to the individual-level mechanism of interest.
Polygenic-score portabilityThe degree to which predictive performance of a polygenic score transfers to populations differing in ancestry or other relevant characteristics.
Direct versus indirect genetic effectsThe distinction between effects operating through an individual’s own biology and effects mediated through genetically related people or their environments.
Shared versus nonshared environmentA behavioral-genetic distinction between environmental influences that make relatives more similar and those associated with differences among them.
Equal-environments assumptionAn assumption in classical twin designs that environmental similarity relevant to the trait does not differ in a way that explains greater resemblance among identical twins.
Genetic confoundingA situation in which an apparently environmental predictor and an outcome correlate partly because genetic differences influence both.
Differential susceptibilityA family of models proposing that individuals differ in sensitivity to environmental adversity and support, rather than differing only in vulnerability to harm.
Diathesis–stressA model in which latent vulnerability interacts with stressors to increase the probability of an adverse outcome.
Vantage sensitivityA model emphasizing individual differences in benefit from supportive or enriching environments.
Reaction normA representation of how a genotype or organism’s phenotype can vary across environmental conditions.
Phenotypic plasticityThe capacity for the same organism or genotype to produce different observable outcomes under different environmental conditions.
Developmental transactionA feedback model in which traits shape environments, environments shape traits, and these effects accumulate recursively over development.
Research trail
This category page is a wiki-authored organizing layer. Follow individual term pages for supplied sources, provenance notes, related concepts, and reading trails.