Nature vs nurture:

• The interactionist approach


  Seeks to answer the question of whether our behaviour is more influenced by nature or nurture

  It is not really a 'debate' about one or the other because any behaviour arises from a combination of both - even something as simple as eye colour is not completely determined by your genes (eye colour is about 80 heritable Chopra et al
• The interactionist approach


  Bowlby claimed that a baby's attachment type is determined by the warmth and continuity of parental love (an environmental influence)

  • Kagan proposed that a baby's innate personality (temperament) affects the attachment relationship
  • Thus, nature (the child's temperament) creates nurture (the parents response) so environment and heredity interact

  For this reason psychologists are now more likely to ask what the relative contribution of each influence is

  The nature-nurture debate is really about discussing how nature and nurture interact - interactionist approach
• Diathesis-stress model


  The diathesis-stress model suggests behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental 'trigger' (stressor)

  For example, a person who inherits a genetic vulnerability for OCD may not develop the disorder. But, combined with a psychological trigger (e.g. a traumatic experience) this may result in the disorder appearing.
• Epigenetics


  Refers to a change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves

  It is a process that happens throughout life and is caused by interaction with the environment

  Aspects of our lifestyle or events we encounter (from smoking) leave 'marks' on our DNA which switch genes on or off

  This explains why factors such as smoking have a lifelong influence even after you actually stop - they have changed the way your genes will be expressed
• Epigenetics:


  Even more remarkably these epigenetic changes may go on and influence the genetic codes of our children, as well as their children. Epigenetics therefore introduces a third element into the nature-nurture debate - the life experience of previous generations.