5.4. Nature vs Nurture Flashcards
Make sure to include examples from topics
What is nature?
Innate, abilities present due to genes
What is nurture?
Environment
Genetic explanations
- Family, twin and adoption studies show that the closer two individuals are genetically, the more likely that both of them will develop the same behaviours.
- Mz twins= 100% same DNA, Dz twins= 50%
Evolutionary explanations
- A behaviour or characteristic that promotes survival/ reproduction will be naturally selected due to characteristics being adaptive, ensures they can be passed onto offspring.
- Attachment behaviours are naturally selected through genetic mechanisms
- Bowlby proposed attachment was adaptive as an infant was more likely to be protected therefore will survive. Also, attachment promotes close relationships which foster successful reproduction.
Nurture: behaviourism
All behaviour can be explained in terms of experience alone, through classical and operant conditioning learning.
Nurture: SLT
Behaviour is acquired through learning from the environment BUT added that it could be acquired through vicarious reinforcement.
- Bandura also said that biology did play a part in the urge to act aggressively, may be biological, but the expression is acquired through environmental influences.
Nurture: other explanations
- Double bind explanation for sz states that children develop sz by getting contradictory messages from their parents
- These conflicting messages of feelings prevents child developing a consistent construction of reality.
Discussion: nature and nurture cannot be separated
- Both contribute, PKU is an inherited disorder that prevents amino acids being metabolised -> results in brain damage
- If detected at birth, a diet devoid of phenylaline can be given which will prevent brain damage
- If prevention can be achieved through environmental manipulation, is this nature of nurture?
Discussion: diathesis stress model
- Diathesis= biological vulnerability, a gene that predisposes you to have a disorder
- However, not everyone with particular disorder genes develop the disorder, it depends on experience/ stressors
- Therefore, a person’s nature is expressed under certain nurture conditions
- E.g. development of sz is diathesis
Discussion: nature affects nurture
- Genes may exert an indirect effect - a child who is genetically aggressive might provoke an aggressive response in others. This response then comes part of learning from the environment. Plomin called this the reactive gene - the child is reacting to genetically influenced behaviour.
Plomin: a 2nd kind of interaction, passive influence
- Parents’s genes influence child’s behaviour ie parent has a genetically determined mental disorder (e.g. sz), this creates an unsettled home life
- Child’s mental health may be impacted by indirect passive efforts
- Active influence: niche picking- children seek out experiences that suit their genes, the influence of genes increase as children get older due to niche picking
Discussion: nurture affects nature
- Life experiences affect innate systems.
- Kittens were given collars that restrict what they could see and they were raised in a circular drum with either vertical or horizontal stripes.
- At 5 months they were released into the real world and no longer had the ability to see lines of the opposite orientation
- This shows their innate visual system has been altered through experience.
Discussion: epigenetics
- The material in each cell that acts like switches to turn genes on/off
- Life experiences control these switches + these are mostly passes on through generations
- Therefore, identical twins might produce children who would differ in weight even though they had identical diets- > this is due to the epigenetic material inherited derived from the environmental effect
- This is why cloning doesn’t produce the exact same person/ animal
- Means genetic and environment are much less separate than we thought.
