Nature-nurture debate

• Nature-nurture debate - Nature:

  • Human characteristics are innate due to heredity
  • Mind is a blank slate as response to learning and experience as a result of the environment
• Importance of heredity and environment - Diathesis-stress model:

  • Psychopathology is caused by a biological / genetic vulnerability (Diathesis) - Only expressed when coupled with a biological / environmental trigger (Stressor)
  • Tienari: Finnish adoptees - More likely to develop s had biological relatives with a history of the disorder (Vulnerability) + Relationships with their adoptive families defined as dysfunctional (Trigger)
• Importance of heredity and environment - Epigenetics:

  • Change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code - Caused by an interaction with our environment
• Evaluation of natured-nurture debate - Shared and unshared environments:

  • Suggests individual differences mean that siblings may experience life events differently
  • Would explain the finding that even MZ twins reared together do not show perfect concordance rates

  Strength: Supports the view that heredity and the environment cannot be meaningfully separated
• Evaluation of natured-nurture debate - Constructivism:

  • People create their own nurture - Actively selecting environments that are appropriate for their nature
  • Naturally an aggressive child - Feel more comfortable around children who show similar behaviours and will choose environment accordingly - Affecting their development

  Conclusion: Impossible and illogical - separate nature and nurture influences on the child's behaviour
• Evaluation of natured-nurture debate - Relationship to other debates:

  • Nature / nurture - Corresponds to hard determinism
  • Suggests anatomy is destiny - Biological determinism
  • Interaction with the environment is all - Environmental determinism