Nature vs nurture

• What topics link to this debate

  • Attachment: learning -> nurture vs Bowlby -> nature
  • Evolutionary explanation for relationships -> nature
  • OCD: the diathesis stress model -> interactionist
  • Abnormality: role of serotonin -> nature
  • Abnormality:Phobias -> nurture
  • Schizophrenia: dopamine -> nature
• Outline of debate

  Nurture describes influences of the environment whereas nature describes the influence of genes on all our characteristics and abilities, detailing the extent to which characteristics develop as process of maturation.
• Nature definition

  Nativists argue that human characteristics are innate - the result of heredity (the genetic transmission of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another)
• Nurture definition

  Empiricists argues that the mind is a blank slate at birth which is written on through learning and experience, as a result of the environment( there can be different levels to the environment: pre-natal environment like mother’s physical and psychological state during pregnancy and post-natal whilst growing up like social conditions, cultural or historical context)
• Importance of heredity and environment

  This is a debate impossible to answer since nature and nurture are closely intertwined and so both practically and theoretically, it makes no sense to separate the two. Like how it’s hard to work out in twin studies if results are dues to shred genetics or shared environment.

  Psychologists now ask what the contribution of each is toward the behaviour
• Interactionist approach

  This is the intermediate between the two where the relationship between nature and nurture is studied in how they interact and influence each other since they are so interlinked
• Diathesis Stress Model

  An example of the interactionist approach since it suggests that psychopathology is caused by a biological/genetic vulnerability which is only expressed when paired with a biological or environmental trigger.
• Epigenetics

  Thia is another example of the interactionist approach since it refers to a change in our genetic activity without a change to our genetic code, instead happening due to interaction with our environment. Aspects of our lifestyle and events we encounter like smoking, diet,pollution etc leave epigenetic marks on our DNA, telling our body which genes to ignore and which ones to use - can go on to influence the genetic codes of our descendant.