Nature vs Nurture

• Nurture is the influence of experience and the environment
• Empiricists (e.g. John Locke) argue that the mind is a blank slate at birth
• Nature is the influence of inherited genetics
• Nativists (e.g. Rene Descartes) argue that all characteristics are innate and determined by biological factors
• Bowlby's monotropic theory supports nativism as social releasers are innate behaviours to ensure survival of and infant and perpetuation of parent genes
• Bandura's bobo doll experiment supports empiricism as it shows that behaviours can be learned & modified through conditioning
• The behaviourist approach can be contradicted as learning itself may have a genetic basis
• Relative Contribution is the concept of how much each of nature & nurture influences us, instead of which one
• Heritability Concept is the number between 0 and 1 which represents the extent to which a trait is inherited
• Epigenetics are changes in our genetic activity/expression without changing the underlying genetic code e.g smoking, nutrition, stress
• Dias & Ressler support epigenetics as they used shocks on mice to condition a fear response which was passed onto generations
• Constructivism is the idea that a person may create their own nurture through selection of environments that fit their nature
• Nativism is unhelpful for the criminal justice system which is based on personal responsibility for behaviour
• Nativism can have negative implications around race and IQ, for example eugenicists
• Empiricism can cause the extreme view that behaviour of the public can be shaped or controlled
• Scarr & McCartney stated that what might seem to be an environmental effect can be mediated by genetic factors
• Scarr & McCartney's theory is an active view of the environment is which people select, modify, construct, and reconstruct their experiences on the basis of genetic propensities
• Passive Interaction is where the parents' genes influence how they treat their children
• Evocative Interaction is where the child's genes influence the experiences they have or can access
• Active Interaction is where the child creates its own environment by actively choosing experiences & people