Nature vs Nuture

• The nature vs nurture is debate that is difficult to answer as many psychologists have their views somewhere in the middle. It is impossible to fully separate nature and nurture as they are so closely linked and influence each other. From the moment a child is environment starts to influence the child. They are so intertwined that we cannot separate the two. Therefore, the nature-nurture debate is about discussing how nature and nurture interact an interactionist approach.
• Nature refers to inherited influences, or heredity means genetic transmission of both mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another. Early that all human characteristics and even some aspects of knowledge are innate. Psychological characteristics like intelligence or personality are determined by biological factors (genes), just as physical characteristics like eye colour or height are.
• Nurture refers to the influence of experience and the environment. that the mind is a blank slate at birth which is then shaped by the environment. This view later became an important feature of the behaviourist approach. Richard Lerner (1986) has identified different levels of the environment. This includes prenatal factors, such as how physical influences like smoking or psychological influences like music affect a foetus. More generally development is influenced postnatally in terms, for example, of the social conditions a child grows up in.
• Diathesis-stress model suggests mental illness like schizophrenia is caused by a biological vulnerability a person inherits a genetic predisposition from a parent a diathesis. Stress only gets expressed if it is mixed with a stressor which can be stress. One study that can explain this model is Tienari (2004) found that adopted children who lived in dysfunctional families and had a biological relative with schizophrenia, were most likely to develop the disorder.
• This shows that there is an interaction between nature and nurture. An updated version of this view also says diathesis doesn't just have to be genetic, it could also include some sort of trauma during childhood that affects the brain while it is still developing.
• Twin studies and adoption studies are ways to investigate the effects of nature and nurture on behaviour. In general, twin studies investigate the role of adoption studies investigate the role of nurture. The interactionist approach considers how nature and nurture interact and influence each other rather than look at them separately.
• Epigenetics is when a change happens in our genetics due to aspects of our environment interacting with our DNA. Lifestyle influences for example diet, smoking, war etc. leave epigenetic marks on our DNA. These marks act like bookmarks and tell us which genes to use and which to ignore. This then goes onto affect the genetic code of any offspring, and any future children they have too.
• An experiment that showed epigenetics is Dias and Ressler (2014) gave rats an electric shock every time they were exposed to acetophenone a chemical used in perfume. The rats eventually showed a fear reaction every time the smell was present but so did their future children and grandchildren even though they hadn't been exposed to the shocks. Epigenetics therefore bring in a third element to the nature-nurture debate; life experiences of previous generations.
• Empiricists which support the view nurture would suggest that if we alter environmental conditions, we can change behaviour. In the topic of schizophrenia, a behaviourist treatment called token economy has been used successfully in patients with schizophrenia. This demonstrates how this is a practical application. Dickerson et al reviewed 13 studies where token economy was used in a psychiatric setting; 11 of these studies reported positive effects in adaptive behaviours for participants.
• Although there are benefits, some critics think that token economy is dehumanising and humiliating. If a care setting is using this, some would argue it is unethical to deprive patients of 'rewards' as a way of managing their behaviour. Furthermore, this could mean that society can control and manipulate its citizens into behaving in the exact ways they would like them to. On the other hand, there are some controversial implications.
• Nativists which support the view of nature suggest that anatomy is destiny and that we cannot avoid what our genes have determined for us. This is an extremely deterministic view which states that we have no choice over our behaviour and that the environment has little input in our behaviour. For example, in the topic of forensic psychology, the MAOA gene has been linked to aggressive behaviour and CDH13 is linked to ADHD. In a Finnish study, a combination of these genes was found to increase the likelihood of committing crime by 13 times. .
• This view therefore has led to socially sensitive research and the possible application of eugenics policies, where only people traits are encouraged to reproduce and those with undesirable traits are discouraged. There are issues with shared environments when attempting nature from nurture
• Twin studies are often used as evidence for nature as a cause of , behaviour. However, there are issues when studying the effects of the environment. It is likely that MZ twins would be treated more similarly; dressed the same, similar interests, identity confusion etc. On the other hand, research that tries to separate the environment and genes faces the problem that siblings raised in the same family may not have experienced exactly the . For example, genetic explanations of schizophrenia , propose that the disorder runs in families and that the concordance rates for identical twins is 48%.
• However, Dunn and Plomin (1990) suggest that siblings may experience life events differently. This can explain the findings that even MZ twins who are brought up together do not have concordance rates of 100%. Though this shows that we cannot separate out genes from the environment and therefore cannot fully understand the relative importance of heredity and environment. The results highlight the need for an interactionist approach.