AO1

• Nurture is when behaviour is a product of environmental influences
• Nature is when behaviour is a product of innate (biological or genetic) factors
• Examples or influence or Nurture:

  • Behaviourism
  • social Learning theory
  • other explanations
• Examples of the influence of nature:

  Genetic explanations — The more closely related two individuals are, the more likely that they will develop the same behaviours. The concordance rate for a mental disorder such as schizophrenia is 40% for MZ twins and 7% for DZ twins. This illustrates how nature plays a part in contribution to the disorder. However, concordance rates for MZ twins are not 100%, despite being genetically identical. This suggests that nurture and the environment also plays a significant role in development.
• Examples of the influence of nurture:

  • Social learning theory — Bandura proposed that behaviour is acquired indirectly through operant and classical conditioning but also by directly through vicarious reinforcement. He acknowledged that biology had a role to play e.g. the urge to act aggressively could be biological but the way a person learns to express anger is through environmental influences (such as through observing and imitating the methods of expression of anger displayed by the identified role models).