issues and debates

Question 1

what is the nature - nurture debate

Answer 1

the relative importance of heredity and environment in
determining behaviour

Question 2

what does the nature side argue

Answer 2

that behaviour is caused by innate characteristics - biology

Question 3

approaches that support the nature debate

Answer 3

• biological and evolutionary approach

Question 4

research to support nature debate

Answer 4

language acquisition (chomsky 1968):
- chomsky maintained language as the result of innate cognitive structures in the mind
- biologically based inborn brain mechanism
- language acquisition follows same sequence in all children

MZ and DZ twins:
- genetic effects shown when correlations within each group is compared with correlations between each group

Question 5

what does the nature side argue

Answer 5

• behaviour is determined by the environment - things that are taught

Question 6

approaches that support nature side

Answer 6

• behaviourist and learning theory

Question 7

research to support nurture debate

Answer 7

little albert (watson and raynor 1920)
- before study, little albert showed no sign of fear response in any situation
- after 5 sessions (1 month later), albert continued to show fear reactions to all stimuli
- provides evidence that the environment can be manipulated to create a phobic response + behavioural change

zimbardo:
- study showed how roles can affect behaviour

Question 8

studies and theories that show interaction between nature and nurture

Answer 8

maguire et al:
- taxi driver study
- MRI scans of taxi drivers 10 years after they became a driver showed that their hippocampal area grew
- showed that the environment changed their brains
- appears that brain has the capacity for plasticity + structure of brain can alter in response to environmental behaviour/demands

diathesis stress model:
- suggested that behaviour is caused by biological or environmental vulnerability; only expressed when coupled with a biological/environmental trigger
- e,g biological explanations of OCD - person who inherits a genetic vulnerability for OCD may not develop the disorder, but when combined with a psychological trigger (e.g trauma), it may result in the disorder appearing

Question 9

what does the interactionist approach argue

Answer 9

• behaviour is often a result of interaction between nature and nurture

Question 10

applications of the nature debate

Answer 10

• drug therapies can be developed to treat behavioural/psychological problems that have a physiological origin
• e.g SSRIs can be used to treat depression

Question 11

applications of the nurture debate

Answer 11

• if behaviour is susceptible to environmental influences, we need to consider how we adapt to our environment
• e.g to promote helping behaviour, decrease criminality etc

Question 12

problems associated with the nature nurture debate

Answer 12

• difficult to tell how much of someone’s behaviour is determined by nature or nurture
• the experiments to find this out aren’t ethically possible either; to get MZ twins and put them in different environments to investigate the effect of genetics + nurture is not ethical
• there are too many extraneous variables to determine causality