nature and nurture

    Cards (14)

      • The debate:
      Nature: Early nativists such as Rene Descartes argued that human characteristics are innate: the result of heredity. In contrast, empiricists including John Locke argued that the mind is a blank slate at birth upon which learning & experience writes: the result of the environment. The heritability coefficient is used to assess heredity.
      • The debate:
      ↳ It is a numerical figure ranging from 0 to 1.0 which indicates the extent to which a characteristic has a genetic basis (with a value of 1 meaning it’s entirely genetically determined). The general figure for heritability in IQ is around 0.5 across multiple studies in varying populations. This suggests that both genetics & the environment are important factors in intelligence
      • The debate:
      ↳ Nurture: the concept of nurture & environmental influences in psych requires further clarification as ‘the environment’ is such a broad & all-encompassing concept. The mother’s physical & psychological state during pregnancy or more generally through postnatal experiences such as the social conditions the child grows up in and the cultural and historical context they are a part of
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
      Nature and nurture are so closely intertwined that it makes little sense to try separate the two
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
      ↳ In twin studies it’s often very difficult to tell whether high concordance rates are more the results of shared genetics or shared upbringing. As such, the focus of the nature-nurture debate has changed in recent years, & psychologists are now more likely to ask what the relative contribution of each influence is in terms of what we think & what we do
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
      ↳ The interactionist approach: Attachment patterns between an infant and its parents are often the result of a ‘two-way street’ in which the child’s innate temperament will influence the way its parents respond to it - and their responses will in turn affect the child’s behaviour. Thus nature creates nurture; heredity and environment interact 
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
       Diathesis-stress model: Models of mental illnesses which emphasise the interaction of nature & nurture tends to be the most persuasive. The diathesis-stress model suggests that psychopathology is caused by a biological/genetic vulnerability (the diathesis) which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental ‘trigger’ (the stressor).
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
      Diathesis-stress model: Pikka Tienari et al.(2004) found that in a group of Finnish adoptees those most likely to develop schizophrenia had biological relatives with a history of the disorder (vulnerability) and had relationships with their adoptive families that were defined as ‘dysfunctional’ (the trigger)
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
      ↳ Epigeneticsl: refers to a change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code. It is a process that happens throughout life and is caused by interaction with the environment. Aspects of our lifestyle, and the events we encounter - from smoking & diet and war - leave epigenetic ‘marks’ on our DNA. These marks tell our bodies which genes to ignore and which to use & in turn may go on & influence the genetic codes of our children.
      • Relative importance of heredity & the environment:
      Epigeneticsl:  Epigenetics introduces a third element into the nature-nurture debate: the life experience of previous generations.
    • A03: Implications of nativism & empiricism: Nativists suggest that ‘anatomy is destiny’ in that our inherited genetic make-up determines our characteristics and behaviour, whilst the environment has little input.
    • A03: Implications of nativism & empiricism:
      •  This extreme determinist stance has led to controversy such as that which attempted to link race, genetics & intelligence. In contrast empiricists would suggest that any behaviour can be changed by altering environmental conditions. Behaviour shaping, behaviourist concept has had practical application in therapy. 
      • AO3: shared & unshared environments
      Research attempting to ‘tease out’ the influence of the environment is complicated by the fact that even siblings raised within the same family may not have experienced exactly the same upbringing. The idea of shared & unshared environments suggests that individual differences mean that siblings may experience life events differently.
      • A03: Relationship to other debates
      A strong commitment to either a nature or nurture position corresponds to a belief in hard determinism. The nativist perspective would suggest that ‘anatomy is destiny’ whilst empiricists would argue that interaction with the environment is all. This equates to biological determinism & environmental determinism respectively