nature-nurture debate

• Nature - Refers to those of our abilities and characteristics as determined by our genes, inherited from our parents.
• People who strongly support the nature argument are called ‘nativists’.
• Nurture - Refers to the influence of our experiences and environment on behaviour.
• The nurture debate believes we are blank slates at birth
• Supporters of the nurture argument are described as ‘empiricists’.
• Levels of the environment - range from the prenatal environment in the womb to life in the external world.
• Interactionism - heredity (nature) and the environment (nurture) have an influence on each other.
• Environmental factors can also affect genetic expression through epigenetics.
• Diathesis-stress model - an interactionist approach. Genes create a vulnerability and stressors in the environment trigger behaviours.
• The nature debate has led to controversy such as that which attempted to link race, genetics and intelligence and the application of eugenics policies.
• empiricists suggest that behaviour can be altered by changes to the environment. This is called behaviour shaping and has had practical application in therapy.
• Research attempting to investigate the influence of the environment is complicated by the fact that even siblings raised within the same family, may not experience the same upbringing.
• Dunn and Plomin (1990) suggests individual differences e.g temperament or age may mean siblings experience the same events differently.
• constructivism is where people create their own nurture by actively seeking out environments that are appropriate to their nature.
• Scarr and McCartney (1983) theorise a gene-environment interaction that includes 3 types.
• Passive interaction - the parents' genes influence the way they treat their children.
• Evocative interaction - the child’s genes influence and shape the environment in which they grow up
• Active interaction - the child creates its own environment through the people and experiences it selects