community. All this has changed now that it is possible to genotype specific genes and incorporate this information into any on-going study. This has made genetics accessible to mainstream developmental science. This molecular advance occurred in concert with growing recognition by social scientists of the importance of genetic predispositions. As behavior genetic studies increasingly acknowledged the complexity of genetic influences on behavior – that genes are not destiny; that genetic effects are dynamic, changing across development and in conjunction with the environment – there was a newfound consilience between genetics and traditional developmental science. These practical and theoretical shifts have contributed to an exponential increase of studies that incorporate genetic components. Consider that a search for “genetics” in PsychNet yields 26,192 hits for the years 2000–2010, as compared to just 7575 hits for 1990–1999, a more than three-fold increase! In fact, the >26,000 publications from the past decade account for nearly 60% of the total number of hits for “genetics” listed in the entirety of PsychNet.
