L2 - Nature vs Nurture

Question 1

What is nature?

Answer 1

• That traits are innate and biological
• Also called nativism/rationalism

Question 2

Who are modern nativists and what do they argue?

Answer 2

• Fodor, Chomsky and Pinker
• Humans have specific cognitive modules from birth (specialized inherited psychological abilities)
• Allows humans to learn & acquire skills (e.g. language)
  
  • e.g. Children acquire spoken language but need to be taught how to read and write

Question 3

What is poverty of a stimulus (POS)? (Chomsky)

Answer 3

• Natural language grammar is unlearnable due to limited data available to children learning a language = Knowledge must have a innate linguistic capacity
• It is a genetically inherited neurological module = Universal understanding of syntax that is fine tuned by an individuals experience with their native language

Question 4

What is nurture?

Answer 4

• Personal experiences and the environment dictate our traits (‘blank slate’ – Locke)
• Also called behaviorism and empiricism
• Watson’s Purist behaviorism sentiment = Could train a healthy child to be anything they want

Question 4

What is the issue if we describe all qualities as innate?

Answer 4

• Can make them seem inflexible – issue for traits such as intelligence etc
• Supports genetic determination from sociology that classes are unable to change due to predetermined characteristics within the population

Question 5

What is heritability?

Answer 5

• Heritability (h) → How much of the variation of a trait (phenotype) in a population is due to genetic differences in that population
• Phenotype (P) = Genetic effects (G) + Environmental effects (E)
• Heritable is not the same as inherited
  
  • Heritability may increase if genetic variation increases or if environmental variation decreases

Question 6

How do we measure genetic effects?

Answer 6

• Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) = Genomic variant at single base positions in the DNA
• Inherit genotypes from parents (Aa, AA, aa) – Can look if they have any association with disease
  
  • Take health group and diseased group, compare genotypes = If genetic variations are found more within diseased population = Association with disease or tagging along with actual variants

Question 7

How do we measure environmental effects?

Answer 7

• Different types of environment: Physical, internal, social, family and emotional
• Measure via direct observation (too expensive), Self-report questionnaire, Parent/teacher reports, clinical interviews, public/social records
• Pros - Quick, easy, “real”, objective
• Cons - Subjective, may not correlate, biases

Question 8

What are the five common myths in the nature vs nurture debate?

Answer 8

• Genes dictate
  
  • Implications if true = Designer babies, no mobility in intelligence etc.
  • Genes don’t dictate complex traits but the range that is possible
    
    • Environment can influence biology (e.g. heigh and diet) and biology can influence environment
• Society is failing (if we have a blank slate)
  
  • Issues with social structure shown by presence of crime, illiteracy, poverty and racism
  • Genes are easy scapegoat
  • Human bias shifts blame
    
    • Negative attributes = “Not my fault”
    • Positive attributes = “All because of me”
  • Phenotype can be positive or negative = All are influenced by both genes and environment
  • e.g. Problem of violence → MAOA gene for violent offenders has been used to reduce prison sentences
• All traits are heritable so heritability is irrelevant
  
  • Argue that we should only be concerned with psychology we can apply to help change
  • Different proportions of heritability, environment can also be responsible for different traits
• What about the mechanism? Genetics tell us nothing about the aetiology
  
  • GWAS (process of randomly splitting DNA sequences and testing) can identify DNA coding of unrelated proteins and might not have functional relevance
  • However = Just because it’s difficult, doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile
  • Should use more hypothesis driven molecular genetics
    
    • Gene function
    • Targeted systems
    • Previous research
    • Shared data & free access
    • Replication across samples
• Genetic literacy: “The general public will misinterpret findings”
  
  • E.g. ‘Fat gene’ → People think they can’t change their weight
  • Can ruin hope for improvement if they interpret is as non-changeable – e.g. conditions such as ADHD
  • Solution
    
    • Education (including psychologists)
    • Communication

Question 9

What can we not conclude from the nature vs nurture debate?

Answer 9

• Genetic and environmental factors are equally important for all traits
• The versus debate is over
• High heritability does not mean that psychological study is worthless