Nature vs Nurture Debate PDF

## Evaluation ### Adoption Studies - Adoption studies separate the influences of nature and nurture. - If adopted children are more similar to their adoptive parents, it suggests that environment is the bigger influence. - If adopted children are more similar to their biological parents, it sugge...

## Evaluation ### Adoption Studies - Adoption studies separate the influences of nature and nurture. - If adopted children are more similar to their adoptive parents, it suggests that environment is the bigger influence. - If adopted children are more similar to their biological parents, it suggests that genetic factors dominate. - A meta-analysis of adoption studies found that genetic influences accounted for 41 percent of the variance in aggression. ### Counterpoint - Research suggests separating nature and nurture in this way is misguided. - People create their own environment based on their nature. - Aggressive children might choose to interact with other aggressive children and create a niche-picking environment. ### Epigenetics - Epigenetics provides support for the debate about nature and nurture. - Environmental factors can have epigenetic effects, spanning generations. - The Dutch Hunger Winter is an example, resulting in women who were pregnant during the famine having children with twice the risk of developing schizophrenia. ### Real-World Application - The nature-nurture debate has real-world application. - OCD is a highly heritable mental disorder. - Understanding its heritability can inform genetic counseling. - This helps people with a genetic risk of OCD learn how to manage stress. ### Evaluation eXtra #### Implications of the Debate - Nativists suggest that anatomy is destiny, and genetics determines our characteristics and behaviour. - This extreme determinist stance can lead to controversial ideas, such as linking ethnicity, genetics, and intelligence, and eugenic policies. - Empiricists suggest that all behaviours can be changed by altering environmental conditions. - Behavioural shaping is a behaviourist concept that selectively reinforces desirable behaviour. - Carried to an extreme, this can lead to complete social control by the state. #### Consider - Is one side of the debate more dangerous than the other? ## The Nature-Nurture Debate ### The Interactionist Approach - The nature-nurture debate seeks to answer whether behaviour is more influenced by nature or nurture. - It is not a true debate because all behaviour arises from a combination of both. - Even eye color is determined partly by genes and partly by the environment. - John Bowlby claimed that a baby's attachment type is determined by the warmth and continuity of parental love. - Jerome Kagan proposed that a baby's innate personality also affects attachment. - Nature and nurture interact; psychologists now focus on determining the relative contribution of each. ### Diathesis-Stress Model - This model suggests behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability coupled with a biological or environmental trigger. - For example, a person with a genetic vulnerability for OCD may develop the disorder as a result of a psychological trigger such as trauma. ### Epigenetics - Epigenetics refers to changes in genetic activity without changing the genes themselves. - This occurs through interaction with the environment, via lifestyle choices, and major life events. - Epigenetics adds a third element to the nature-nurture debate, since life experiences can influence the genetic codes of children and grandchildren. ## Key Concepts of the Debate ### Nature - Nature refers to inherited influences or heredity. - Early nativists argued that all human characteristics and even some aspects of knowledge are innate. - This perspective assumes psychological characteristics are determined by biological factors, like eye color and height. ### Nurture - Nurture refers to the influence of experience and the environment. - Empiricists argued that the mind is a blank slate at birth, and therefore shaped by the environment. - Different levels of the environment include prenatal and postnatal factors. ### Measuring Nature and Nurture - Concordance is the degree to which two people are similar on a particular trait. - Heritability is the proportion of differences between individuals in a population with regards to a particular trait that is due to genetic variation. - Heritability ranges from 0 to 1, with 0 indicating genes contribute almost nothing to individual differences and 1 signifying genes are the whole cause. - Heritability of IQ is about 0.5, meaning about half of a person's intelligence is determined by genes and half by environment.