nature vs nurture debate

• Nature


  The argument that biological factors have the strongest influence on development. Any capabilities or limitations are innate.
• Nurture


  The argument that environmental factors have the strongest influence on development. Environmental influences: Family, School, Peers, Culture
• The debate is based on the question: Is a child's development mostly influenced by genetics (nature) or the environment (nurture)?
• John Locke


  • Rejected the prevailing notion that children were miniature adults who arrived in the world fully equipped with abilities and knowledge and simply had to grow for these characteristics to appear
  • Believed that the mind of a newborn is a 'tabula rasa'
  • According to Locke, all knowledge comes through experience through the senses. There is no built-in knowledge
• Charles Darwin


  • His theory of evolution (1859) emphasized that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce
  • This led many theorists to emphasis heredity
• The nature vs nurture debate is important because it has implications for schooling, parenting, etc.
• There is no clear conclusion to the nature vs nurture dispute, with overwhelming evidence found in favour of both hypotheses.
• Stages


  All children go through the same stages in the same order. Behaviours at a given stage are organised around a dominant theme or a coherent set of characteristics, and are qualitatively different from behaviours at earlier or later stages. Environmental factors may speed up or slow down development, but the order of the stages does not vary.
• Maturation


  The emergence of individual and behavioral characteristics through growth processes over time. It is a fairly fixed schedule which each infant follows, e.g. motor development. This process is a sequence of growth and change that is relatively independent of external events.
• Motor Development


  The development of a child's bones, muscles and ability to move around and manipulate his or her environment. Almost all children go through the same sequence of motor behaviours in the same order, but at different rates. Practice or extra stimulation can accelerate the onset of motor behaviours to some extent.
• Speech Development


  Generally, all human infants learn to speak, but not until they have attained a certain level of neurological development. Children reared in an environment where people talk to them, talk earlier than children who do not receive such attention. The environment affects the rate at which children acquire the skills, not the ultimate skill level.
• Critical Periods


  Crucial time periods in a person's life when specific events occur if development is to proceed normally. For example, if children who are born with cataracts have them removed before age 7, their vision develops fairly normally. But if a child goes through the first 7 years without adequate vision, extensive permanent disability results.
• Sensitive Periods


  Periods that are optimal for a particular kind of development. If certain behaviours are not well established during this sensitive period, they may not develop to their full potential. The first year of life is a sensitive period for the formation of close attachments, and the preschool years may be especially significant for intellectual development and language acquisition.
• In the area of sexuality, men and women report different attitudes and behaviours, with men, in general, expressing more interest in sex. In the area of physical aggression, men generally are more physically aggressive compared to women. In the area of cognitive abilities, males tend to do better on tests of math and spatial abilities and females typically score higher on tests of verbal skills.
• Biological Perspectives


  Focus on the different levels of sex hormones, estrogen and testosterone, which have their greatest impacts during prenatal development and puberty.
• Environmental Perspectives


  Males and females have different life experiences because of how others treat them, that is, how they are socialised. This includes gender roles (sex-typed behaviours promoted by social learning) and gender schemas (beliefs about men and women that influence the way people perceive themselves and others).
• Biosocial Theory


  Identifies the differences between males and females concerning physical strength and reproductive capacity, and how these differences interact with expectations from society about social roles. This interaction produces the differences we see in gender.
• Family Studies


  Studies that estimate genetic influences through similarities of family members who vary in their degree of genetic relatedness.
• Twin Studies


  A method of testing nature and nurture by comparing pairs of identical and fraternal twins of the same sex.
• Adoption Studies


  A method of testing nature and nurture by comparing twins and other siblings reared together with those separated by adoption.
• Genetic factors account for some differences in intelligence, verbal and spatial abilities, criminality, vocational interests, and aggressiveness. There is a genetic component to psychological disorders, such as alcoholism, depression, and schizophrenia. And, there is evidence for a genetic link to people's attitudes toward issues and activities.
• Genetic differences typically account for less than 50 percent of the variation in personality. Environmental factors account for the rest of the variation.
• Studies show that similarities in identical twins raised apart may be due to the fact that many adoptive families are similar in important ways (for example stable home life). A study done with adoptive children raised in the same house had very similar IQs, even though these children were in no way related genetically.
• Studies of neglected infants and of feral children (children who were raised by wild animals) show that if children do not get care and attention in their early, formative years, whatever innate intelligence they have never gets a chance to develop properly and they remain developmentally backward. On the other hand, in a supportive background, a child will be encouraged to do well and will have more opportunities in which to succeed.
• Today most psychologists agree not only that both nature and nurture play important roles but also that they interact continuously to guide development. "Brain development is heavily influenced both by genetic factors and the stimulation and deprivation a child receives from the environment in the early years".
• Interactionism


  A range of genetic influences can be expressed differently in a range of potential environments. Genes may give a person an advantage when it comes to the development of intelligence, but a nurturing environment is necessary for that person to utilise that advantage. Children in the same family may also be different because they may not have the same experiences at school, rules at home, etc. Both nature and nurture influence development, but one may be predominant at a certain point in life. Heredity and environment cannot be separated, and maybe they shouldn't be separated.