Abstract
This paper briefly reviews some of the work of Pavlov and his school as it bears on the problems of behavioral inheritance, especially in relation to their work on the inheritance of acquired conditioned responses in mice. The timeliness of Pavlov’s excursion into this area is stressed and the reasons for its lack of success explored. It seems likely that some form of selection was adventitiously involved.
The nature of the difficulties inherent in the analysis of behavioral inheritance is outlined, and a program of work on psychogenetics in the rat, using the analytical methods of biometrical genetics, is described. Some of the findings obtained, both from bi-directional selection experiments for emotional elimination and for speed of escape-avoidance conditioning and from diallel crossing experiments for emotionality, are reviewed.
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Much of the research referred to in this paper was supported by a U. S. Public Health Service research grant (No. MH 08712) from the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Broadhurst, P.L. Behavioral inheritance: Past and present. Conditional Reflex 1, 3–15 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03001081
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03001081