Psychology: Nature vs. Nurture Debate

Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature (genes) contributes strongly to some characteristics, such as size, appearance, and height.
• Nurture (environmental influences and experiences) also plays a significant role in shaping more complex traits, such as intelligence and personality.
• Heredity creates predispositions, and environmental influences determine how they develop.

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory

• The theory describes the relationships between an individual and their environment as bi-directional.
• Five levels of the environment:
  • Microsystem: most immediate surroundings (friends, family, teachers).
  • Mesosystem: relations between microsystems (connection between home and workplace, etc.).
  • Exosystem: social settings that affect the individual without them playing an active role (e.g., workplace policies).
  • Macrosystem: operates at the outer level (e.g., cultural values, laws).
  • Chronosystem: represents changes that occur over time.

Critical Period and Sensitive Period

• Critical Period: the brain is set to acquire a function during a limited period of time, and if key experiences don't occur during this time, the function may not develop or fully develop.
• Sensitive Period: optimal time for development to occur, but not as critical if delays occur.
• Maturation: biologically based changes that follow an orderly sequence.

Continuity and Discontinuity

• Strong consistencies over time in:
  • Intelligence.
  • Personality.
  • Social skills.
• Factors contributing to continuity:
  • Biological characteristics.
  • Individuals shaping their environment and experiences.
  • Cumulative effects of positive or negative experiences.
  • Age-related normative events.
  • Non-normative events.

Differences in Developmental Trajectories

• Quantitative differences:
  • Individuals with developmental delays or intellectual disabilities usually go through the same stages but at a slower pace.
• Qualitative differences:
  • Individuals with autism spectrum disorders develop social and emotional skills differently than typically developing peers.

Research Designs

• Cross-sectional design:
  • Participants of different ages are compared at one point in time to determine age-related differences.
  • Advantages: cheaper, easier.
  • Disadvantages: completely different people, development may be affected by own experiences, subject to cohort differences.
• Longitudinal design:
  • The same participants are studied at various ages to determine age-related changes.
  • Advantages: can capture individual changes over time.
  • Disadvantages: expensive, participants drop out or die, could be affected by world events.
• Sequential design:
  • Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal designs.
  • Examines different age groups at multiple points in time.
  • Reduces cohort effects.

Cognitive Development

• Piaget's theory:
  • Children are active agents trying to make sense of the world and constructing theories/schemas.
  • Stage model: children's thinking changes qualitatively with age.
  • Schemas: organized patterns of thoughts and action.
  • Assimilation: the process of incorporating new experiences into existing schemas.
  • Accommodation: the process of changing existing schemas to fit new experiences.
  • Disequilibrium: an imbalance between existing schemas and new experiences.
• Vygotsky's theory:
  • Development through social interaction.
  • Constructivism: children construct schemas/mental representations through engaging with the world.