Nature vs Nurture

• Define Nature


  the view that behaviour is a product of innate (biological and genetic) factors.
• Define Innate Characteristics


  characteristics that we are born with.
• Define Nurture


  the view that behaviour is a product environmental influences.

  this includes both the physical and social world, and may be more widely referred to as 'experience'.
• Define Heredity


  the process by which traits are carried down from one generation to another (genetic inheritance).
• Define Acquired Characteristics


  traits we acquire or pick up from our environment through life.
• Define Interactionist Approach


  the view that both nature and nurture interact and work together to shape human behaviour.
• Define Diathesis-Stress Model


  a psychological theory that attempts to explain the cause of a disorder as a result of an interaction between a pre-dispositional vulnerability and a stress caused by life experiences.
• Define Epigenetics


  refers to the change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code.

  a process which happens throughout life and is caused by a interaction with the environment.
• Nature


  - known as the nativist position

  - basic assumption that the characteristics of the human species are a product of evolution and that individual differences are the result of each person's genetic code.

  - Rene Descartes argued that all human characteristics and even some aspects of knowledge, are innate.
• Example of Nature

  Attachment:

  - Bowlby proposed that children come into the world biologically programmed to form attachments as this will enable them to survive.

  - suggests that attachment behaviours are naturally selected and passed on as a result of genetic inheritance.

  - Bowlby's theory is supported by animal research conducted by Lorenz & Harlow.
• Nurture


  - product of environmental influences.

  - seen as everything outside of the body - includes people, events and the world.

  - known as empiricists - hold the assumption that the human mind is tabula rasa.

  - tabula rasa - proposed by John Locke in the 17th century - later taken up by behavioural psychologists.
• Example of Nurture

  Attachment:

  - behaviourists explain attachment in terms of Classical Conditioning.

  - food is associated with the mother and through many repeated pairings, the mother becomes a CS who prompts a CR in the child.

  - child forms an attachment based on the pleasure experienced as a result of food.
• Measuring Nature and Nurture

  - represented by a correlation coefficient - concordance.

  - concordance provides an estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited - heritability.

  - e.g. heritability of IQ is around 0.5, so has a genetic basis and an environmental basis.
• Debate Definition


  seeks to answer the question of whether our behaviours more influenced by nature or nurture.

  not really a debate about one or the other as any behaviour/characteristic arises from a combination of both.
• AO3 Evaluation - Interactionism can explain Neural Plasticity

  - Maguire et al investigated the hippocampi volume of London taxi drivers.

  - found that this regions of the brain was larger in taxi drivers compared to non-taxi drivers.

  - Maguire concluded that driving a taxi actually had an effect on the size of the hippocampi demonstrating the importance of an interactionist approach and presenting evidence that nurture can affect nature.
• AO3 Evaluation - Support for Epigenetics

  - one example - 1944, the Nazi's blocked the distribution of food to the Dutch and 22,000 people died of starvation.

  - Susser and Lin report that women who became pregnant during the famine gave birth to low weight babies. these babies also were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia when they grew up.

  - strength as it supports the view that the life experiences of previous generations can leave epigenetic 'markers' that influence the health of their offspring.
• AO3 Evaluation - Adoption Studies

  - if adopted children are similar to their adoptive parents, nurture is a bigger influence.

  - if they are similar to their biological parents, the nature is more dominant.

  - Plomin suggests that people create their own 'nurture' by actively selecting environments that are appropriate for their 'nature'.

  - a naturally aggressive child is likely to feel more comfortable with children who show similar behaviour and will 'choose' their environment accordingly - niche-picking.

  - strength as it suggests that it doesn't make sense to look at evidence of either nature or nurture.
• AO3 Evaluation - Understanding this debate can relate to other debates

  - a strong commitment to either a nature or nurture position corresponds to a hard deterministic belief the nativist perspective would suggest that 'anatomy is destiny' whereas empiricists would argue that interactions with the environment is all.

  - equate to biological determinism and environmental determinism showing how nature-nurture links to other debates in psychology i.e. free will and determinism.