AO3

• Diathesis-Stress Model — A diathesis is a biological vulnerability. However not everyone with these ‘candidate’ genes will develop a disorder. The expression of the gene depends on experience in the form of a stressor which triggers the condition (a diathesis). This has been illustrated by Tienari et al who studied 145 Finnish adoptees whose mothers had schizophrenia and were then matched with a sample of 158 adoptees without this genetic risk.
• Nurture affects nature

  • Your Year 1 study of neural plasticity has taught you how life experiences shape your biology - that is, how nurture affects nature.
  • For example, Maguire et al.'s (2000) study of London taxi drivers showed that the region of their brains associated with spatial memory was bigger than in controls. The taxi drivers were not born this way; rather, their hippocampi had responded to increased use.
  • These examples give a clear demonstration of how nurture can affect nature.