the nature-nurture debate

• nature + nurture: innate influences are referred to as 'nature', this doesn't simply refer to abilities present at birth but to any ability determined by genes such as secondary sexual characteristics which appear at puberty or a condition like Huntington's disease which is usually only apparent in adulthood
• nature + nurture: environmental influences, or 'nurture' are acquired through interactions w/ the environment, this includes both the physical and the social world and may be more widely referred to as 'experience', it includes effects on an infant before birth, such as a mother who smokes
• nature-genetic explanations: family + adoption studies show that the closer 2 individual are genetically, the more likely that both them will develop the same behaviours
• nature-genetic explanations: e.g. the concordance rate for a mental disorder such as schizophrenia is about 40% for MZ twins (who have identical genes) and 7% for DZ twins (who, on average share 50% of their genes), this closer similarity for individuals w/ the same genes shows that nature has a major contribution to the disorder
• nature-evolutionary explanations: any evolutionary explanation is based on the principle that a behaviour or characteristic that promotes survival and reproduction will be naturally selected
• nature-evolutionary explanations: this is because such behaviours/characteristics are adaptive and thus the genes for that behaviour/characteristic will be passed on to subsequent generations
• nature-evolutionary explanations: e.g. Bowbly (1969) proposed that attachment was adaptive because it meant an infant was more likely to be protected and therefore more likely to survive, in addition attachment promotes close relationships which would foster sucessful reproduction
• nature-evolutionary explanations: therefore attachment behaviours are naturally selected which can only be done through genetic mechanisms
• in the 17th century the philosopher John Locke described the newborn infant as a tabula rasa, a blank slate on which experience is written, this was the view adopted by the behaviorists
• nurture-behaviourism: behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be explained in terms of experience alone, B.F. Skinner used the concepts of classical and operant conditioning to explain learning
• nurture-behaviourism: e.g. behaviourists suggested that attachment could be explained in terms of classical conditioning (food is the mother who feeds the baby) or operant conditioning (food reduces the discomfort of hunger + is therefore rewarding)
• nurture-social learning theory: Bandura's view was a little less extreme than traditional behaviourism, he too proposed that behaviour is acquired through learning, adding the new dimension of indirect (vicarious) reinforcement
• nurture-social learning theory: but Bandura did also allow that biology had a role to play e.g. he acknowledged that the urge to behave aggressively might be biological but the important point was that the way a person learned to express anger is acquired through environmental influences (direct + indirect reinforcement)
• nurture-other explanations: there are a number of other psychological explanations that are not behaviourist or social learning but are basically nurture
• nurture-other explanations: e.g. the double bind theory of schizophrenia suggests that schizophrenia develops in children who frequently receive contradictory messaged from their parents e.g. if a mother tells her son that she loves him yet at the same time turns her head away in disgust
• nurture-other explanations: such conflicting messages about her feelings prevent the child developing an internally consistent construction of reality which may lead to symptoms of schizophrenia
• an example of an approach that links to Nature is the biological approach, more specifically OCD - psychopathology
• an example of an approach that links to Nurture is the behaviourist approach, more specifically SLT
• an example of the interactionist approach is: depression = the nature was the drugs (SSRIs-antidepressants) that are given to change the chemicals in the blood, then the nurture was the social factors (e.g. post natal depression and trauma) this was treated by CBT talking therapy, drugs + therapy together works better
• S: if we identify a genetic basis for a condition then we do not blame the person their behaviour e.g. criminal behaviour shown in Raine's (1997) study is due to brain dysfunction
• S: behaviour that is identified as being learnt can then be unlearnt, this would be useful for criminal behaviour and some forms of mental disorder, behaviour would appear to be under the control of the individual (free will)
• L: it is difficult to desperate the effects of heredity and environment, when studying the influence of genetics on schizophrenia most participants also had a shared environment
• L: it is difficult to separate out the effects of heredity and environment, e.g. when looking at the influence of the family environment on anorexics they also share genetics