ISSUES AND DEBATES: the nature-nurture debate Flashcards
what is the nature-nurture debate?
Concerned with the extent of whether our behaviour is influenced by inherited or acquired characteristics.
What is the difference between nature and nature?
Nature is genetics and nurture is environment
What is the interactionist approach?
Nature and nurture interact to shape behaviour rather than acting separately. e.g someones family behaviours and genetics might both increase their risk of schizophrenia
What is the diathesis stress model?
Genetic vulnerabilities combined with environmental stress, triggers disorder.
What do we mean by nature?
Inherited influences on heredity
What does heredity mean?
The genetic transmission of both mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another
What does Descartes argue?
All human characteristics are innate – psychological characteristics are determined by biological factors (genes)
What do we mean by nurture?
Traits develop through experience and surroundings. Locke proposes that our mind is a blank slave treated by the environment.
Lerner - environment includes prenatal and postnatal factors.
How come we measure nature and nurture impact?
The concordance rate measures similarity and traits using correlation coefficient which provides estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited
Heritability= the proportion of a trait caused by genetics.
IG heritability = 0.5 = meaning intelligence is 50% genetic and 50% environmental.
What is Epigenetics?
Environmental factors influence gene expression with without altering DNA sequence. Events we encounter switches, genes on or off = changing the way genes are expressed.
Give some strength of the nature – nurture debate,
+ adoption studies show that if adoptive children resemble their adoptive parents it suggests that the environment is a key influence. If they resemble biological parents genetic factors are presumed to dominate.
+ support for epigenetics = Susser + Lin = found that dutch babies born during winter time were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia. This is because women who became pregnant during this time experienced famine due to the world war. This shows that the life experience experiences of previous generations can leave epigenetic markers that influence the health of their offspring.
+ real world application = OCD has high heritability rate, which is useful for genetic counselling. Family can receive advice about how they can prevent the likelihood of developing a disorder. This shows that debate is important at a practical level to understand the interaction between nature and nurture.
