Check Point

Heredity and Hormones

University of Phoenix

Heredity and hormones are things that affect all of us. We are all shaped by things in life we experience and how we react to these experiences can be traced back to heredity and hormones. Heredity and hormones affect the way our behavior develops and how we react to situations. Both nature and how we were nurtured affects each one of us differently. I plan to discuss a few ideas I feel shape how we develop and first of will be the endocrine system. The second topic will be hormones and identify them and the glands responsible for secreting them. I will also cover heredity also known as behavior genetics and the evolution of psychology.

The endocrine system is the system of glands, each of which secretes a type of hormone directly into the bloodstream to regulate the body. The endocrine system is an information signal system like the nervous system, yet its effects and mechanism are different. The endocrine system’s effects are slow to initiate, and prolonged in their response, lasting from a few hours up to weeks.

Hormones are substances (chemical mediators) released from endocrine tissue into the bloodstream where they travel to target tissue and generate a response. Hormones regulate various human functions, including metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, and mood. Features of endocrine glands are, in general, their ductless nature, their vascularity, and usually the presence of intracellular vacuoles or granules storing their hormones. In contrast, exocrine glands, such as salivary glands, sweat glands, and glands within the gastrointestinal tract, tend to be much less vascular and have ducts or a hollow lumen.

Heredity is like the foundation of a building with all the piping intact but none of the structure yet. It has all the possibility but nothing has been realized and actualized. Behavioral genetics is the field of study that examines the role of genetics in animal (including human) behavior. Often associated with the “nature versus nurture” debate, behavioral genetics is highly interdisciplinary, involving contributions from biology, genetics, ethology, psychology, and statistics. Behavioral geneticists study the inheritance of behavioral traits. In humans, this information is often gathered through the use of the twin study or adoption study.

In conclusion the human body is very complex and each one develops in many different ways depending on what traits were inherited and how their body reacts to the hormones. People all develop differently because each one of us reacts in a unique to life and what they experience. Furthermore our bodies produce hormones differently and react to them in specific ways.

References:

Understanding Psychology: Chapter 2