Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-w79xw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-01T17:51:31.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Behavior genetics: Causality as a dialectical pursuit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2023

Livio Tarchi Open the ORCID record for Livio Tarchi [Opens in a new window] ,
Giuseppe Pierpaolo Merola Open the ORCID record for Giuseppe Pierpaolo Merola [Opens in a new window] ,
Giovanni Castellini Open the ORCID record for Giovanni Castellini [Opens in a new window]  and
Valdo Ricca Open the ORCID record for Valdo Ricca [Opens in a new window]
Livio Tarchi
Affiliation:
Psychiatry Unit, Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, FI, Italy [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Giuseppe Pierpaolo Merola
Affiliation:
Psychiatry Unit, Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, FI, Italy [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Giovanni Castellini
Affiliation:
Psychiatry Unit, Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, FI, Italy [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Valdo Ricca
Affiliation:
Psychiatry Unit, Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, FI, Italy [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The overarching theme of causality in behavioral genetics is discussed on epistemological grounds. Evidence is offered in favor of a continuum spectrum in causality, in contrast to discrimination between causal factors and associations. The risk of invalidating exploratory studies in behavior genetics is discussed, especially for the potential impact on those fields of medicine interested in complex behaviors.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e203
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumgartner, M. (2008). Regularity theories reassessed. Philosophia, 36(3), 327–354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9114-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, M., & Ambühl, M. (2020). Causal modeling with multi-value and fuzzy-set coincidence analysis. Political Science Research and Methods, 8(3), 526–542. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2018.45CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benesty, J., Chen, J., Huang, Y., & Cohen, I. (2009). Pearson correlation coefficient. In Cohen, I., Huang, Y., Chen, J., & Benesty, J. (Eds.), Noise reduction in speech processing (pp. 1–4). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00296-0_5Google Scholar
Bulik, C. M. (2021). From awareness to action: An urgent call to address the inadequacy of treatment for anorexia nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry, 178(9), 786–788. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2021.21070697CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K. S., & Neale, M. C. (2010). Endophenotype: A conceptual analysis. Molecular Psychiatry, 15(8), 789–797. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2010.8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mitchell, J. E., Maki, D. D., Adson, D. E., Ruskin, B. S., & Crow, S. (1997). The selectivity of inclusion and exclusion criteria in bulimia nervosa treatment studies. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 22(3), 243–252. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-108X(199711)22:3<243::AID-EAT3>3.0.CO;2-N3.0.CO;2-N>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Popper, K. R. (1940). What is dialectic? Mind; A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, XLIX(194), 403–426. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XLIX.194.403CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, M. D., & Finn, E. S. (2022). How to establish robust brain–behavior relationships without thousands of individuals. Nature Neuroscience, 25(7), 835–837. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-022-01110-9CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sirugo, G., Williams, S. M., & Tishkoff, S. A. (2019). The missing diversity in human genetic studies. Cell, 177(1), 26–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.02.048CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Visscher, P. M., Brown, M. A., McCarthy, M. I., & Yang, J. (2012). Five years of GWAS discovery. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 90(1), 7–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.11.029CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, J., Veugelers, R., & Stephan, P. (2017). Bias against novelty in science: A cautionary tale for users of bibliometric indicators. Research Policy, 46(8), 1416–1436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2017.06.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar