nature-nurture debate

• Environment

  Any influence on human behaviour that is non-genetic e.g. parental influences, cultural/historical influences, food etc
• Heredity

  The genetic transmission of both mental and physical characteristics from one generation to the next
• Interactionist approach

  Explains the development of behaviour in terms of the interaction of biological and psychological factors
• Nature

  Suggests behaviour is the result of innate, biological factors
• Nurture

  Suggests behaviour is a produce of environmental influences
• The nature-nurture debate

  The argument as to whether a persons development is mainly due to their genes or environmental influences
• Nature

  In the "nature vs nurture" debate, nature refers to an individual's innate qualities (nativism).

  Example: Nature is your genes. The physical and Personality traits determined by your genes stay the same irrespective of where you were born and raised.

  Factors: Biological and Family
• nurture

  In the "nature vs nurture" debate, nurture refers to personal experiences (i.e. empiricism or behaviorism).

  Example: Nurture refers to your childhood, or how you were brought up. Someone could be born with genes to give them a normal height, but be malnourished in childhood, resulting in stunted growth and a failure to develop as expected.

  Factors : Environmental and Social
• •Forensic psychology –debate as to whether offender are born criminals or influenced by environmental factors
• •Schizophrenia – genetic influences on schizophrenia support nativists argument as it supports the view schizophrenia is part of an individuals genetic make up vs family dysfunction theory however provides evidence for nurture viewpoint as stress the importance of the environment in the development of schizophrenia
• Attachments – Bowlby's innate drive versus the learning theory of attachments
• •Relationships – evolutionary theory states importance of genes  compared to cultural differences found in attractiveness/ attraction suggesting mate preference is environmentally determined
• •Nature nurture debate has now moved from an argument of extreme circumstances to the general acknowledgement that an interactionist stance is appropriate. The argument is now based on the relative importance of nature and nurture.
• •Assessing the influence of nature/nurture is tricky - even when using twin studies – assumes the only difference between MZ/DZ twins is genetics but could be argued that MZ twins are treated more similarly than DZ twins – adding some nurture element to concordance rates .
• •Research on heritability of characteristics varies greatly – could be due to e.g. sample size , age , methodology or that some people are more susceptible to environmental influence than others – so consensus hard to reach .