Imagine that you are a behaviour geneticist interested in the heritability of personality attributes. Describe how you would go about studying the genetic basis of personality. What would your basic procedure be? What measurement issues would you face? How much would you draw on psychological theories of personality? Which theories?

Behavior geneticists assess the question of inheriting personality.  Are our genes responsible for our creativity, aggressiveness or confidence?  Examining personality traits through a genetic focus is an obscure task.  Methods employed by behavior geneticists involve epidemiological studies, such as screening family pedigrees, conducting twin heritability studies, and adoption studies.  In this essay, I will discuss the methodology behind twin studies as well as many issues that behavior geneticists face.  I will also present information regarding other personality theories and their relationship to behavior genetics….(short extract)