I&D - The nature-nurture debate Flashcards
Environment
Everything that is outside the body, which includes people, events and the physical world.
Heredity
The process by which traits are passed from parents to their offspring, usually referring to genetic inheritance.
Interactionist approach
With reference to the nature-nurture debate, the view that the processes of nature and nurture work together rather than in opposition.
Nature
Behaviour is seen to be a product of innate (biological or genetic) factors.
Nature-nurture debate
The argument as to whether a person’s development is mainly due to their genes or to environmental influences.
Nurture
Behaviour is a product of environmental influences.
What are the nature arguments in the nature-nurture debate?
Genetic explanations.
Evolutionary explanations.
What are the nurture arguments in the nature-nurture debate?
Behaviourism.
Social learning theory.
Other explanations - the environment.
Describe genetic explanations as an example of the influence of nature in the nature-nurture debate
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. For example, schizophrenia, addiction and criminal behaviours.
For example, he 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). Joseph, 2004. This close similarity for individuals with the same genes shows that nature has a major contribution to the disorder.
Give a practical example showing how genetic explanations influence behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
For example, he 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). Joseph, 2004. This close similarity for individuals with the same genes shows that nature has a major contribution to the disorder.
High SERT and low COMT activity leads to OCD.
Describe evolutionary explanations as an example of the influence of nature in the nature-nurture debate
Any evolutionary explanation is based on the principle that a behaviour or characteristic that promotes survival and reproduction will be naturally selected. This is because such behaviours/characteristics are adaptive and thus the genes for that behaviour/characteristic will be passed on to subsequent generations.
What are evolutionary explanations based on?
Any evolutionary explanation is based on the principle that a behaviour or characteristic that promotes survival and reproduction will be naturally selected.
Give a practical example showing how evolutionary explanations influence behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
For example, Bowlby (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 successful reproduction. Therefore, attachment behaviours are naturally selected, which can only be done through genetic mechanisms.
What view was adopted by the behaviourists?
The view that the newborn infant is a tabula rosa, a blank state on which experience is written, adopted from the 17th century view from the philosopher John Locke.
Describe behaviourism as an example of the influence of nurture influences behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
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.
For example, 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 and is therefore rewarding).
Give a practical example showing how behaviourism influences behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
For example, 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 and is therefore rewarding).
Phobics must have an original trauma.
Describe social learning theory as an example of the influence of nurture influences behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
Bandura’s view was less extreme than behaviourists but he too proposed that behaviour is acquired through learning, adding the new dimension of indirect (vicarious) reinforcement.
But Bandura did also allow that biology had a role to play; for example he acknowledged that the urge to behave aggressively might be biological, but the important point was the way a person learns to express anger is acquired through environmental influences (direct and indirect reinforcement).
Give a practical example showing how social learning theory influences behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
Bandura acknowledged that the urge to behave aggressively might be biological, but the important point was the way a person learns to express anger is acquired through environmental influences (direct and indirect reinforcement).
Phobics may learn extreme fear from parent models.
Describe the environment as an example of the influence of nurture influences behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
Our families/friends/school causes behavioural outcomes.
Give a practical example showing how the environment influences behaviour in the nature-nurture debate
Beck’s negative triad. Repeated failure leads to withdrawal and hopelessness.
The double blind theory of schizophrenia (Bateson et al., 1956) suggests that schizophrenia develops in children who frequently receive contradictory messages from their parents; for example, if a mother tells her son that she loves him, yet at the same time turns her head away in disgust. Such conflicting messages about her feelings prevent the child developing an internally consistent construction of reality, which may lead to symptoms of schizophrenia.
What evidence is there for nature in the nature-nurture debate?
- Concordance rates (e.g. OCD).
- Neural correlates.
- Drug therapies.
- Eugenics.
What evidence is there for nurture in the nature-nurture debate?
- Token economy.
- Rutter et als. ERA study.
- Flooding/systematic desensitisation.
What evidence is there for both nature and nurture together in the nature-nurture debate?
The diathesis-stress model.
How is there a subtext relating to politics underlying the nature-nurture debate?
The contrasting concepts of human nature have tended to correlate with contrasting political ideals.
On one side, ‘nature’ has been linked with 20th century eugenics (enforced selective breeding) as advocated, for example, by the Nazis. If nature determines behaviour, then the human stock can be improved by selective breeding. Many countries (particularly the US) have practised selective breeding by sterilising thousands of people deemed ‘feeble-minded’.
On the other side, the ‘environment is all’ idea is popular with people who believe that any human trait can be altered with the appropriate changes in social institutions. This has led to equally brutal regimes under leaders such as Stalin (in the former Soviet Union) and Pol Pot (in Cambodia) who believed that you could engineer the behaviour of others through conditioning so that they behaved as you wished them to behave.
Such political agendas mean that arguments for or against nature (or nurture) may be as much founded on political beliefs as on scientific evidence (Pinker, 2003).
