Lesson 4 - Nature and Nurture debate

Question 1

What is the definition of nature?

Answer 1

Our behaviour is determined by our genetics. E.g our personality traits or preferences are in our inherent nature. We genetically inherit physical traits, personality traits, intelligence, and preferences from our parents.

Question 2

Define nurture?

Answer 2

Our environment, upbringing, and life experiences determine or behaviour. We are nurtured to behave in certain ways.

Question 3

Define nativism?

Answer 3

The view that many skills or abilities are native or hardwired into the brain at birth. Infants are born with hard-wired knowledge because such knowledge confers an advantage to survival.

Examples to understand -
infants have a range of impressive perceptual and cognitive skills early in development , they imitate, look longer at surprising events and show communication behaviours early on.

Question 4

Define Empiricism?

Answer 4

The view that knowledge and mental content results from learning and experiences. Tabula rasa, ie, clean/blank slate. Humans aren’t built with in core knowledge or mental content like Nativists argue.

Question 5

Define Heritability?

Answer 5

How much of the variation of a specific trait in a particular population is the result of genetic variation among individuals in that population.

Question 6

Define Environmentality?

Answer 6

How much of a variation of a specific trait in a particular population is the result of environmental factors.

Question 7

Define Phenotype?

Answer 7

The interaction of genetic and environmental factors that result in a persons physical appearance, traits, and behaviour.

Question 8

What is variation in the influence of Nature/Nurture across species?

Answer 8

PRECOCIAL and ALTRICIAL SPECIES.

Question 9

What are precocial species?

Answer 9

(mature before it’s time)
The young are physically mobile from birth

Question 10

What is an example of a precocial species?

Answer 10

EG (extreme example)

The Maleo Bird - found in Indonesia

Maleos are monogamous and pairs are rarely found separate from one another.

●When it is time to breed, they go to the beach and the female lays the egg and covers it with sand. The breeding pair then leave.●When the egg hatches the bird digs its way out and heads to the forest.It can fly from birth.

●Chicks have no parental rearing or environmental input

Question 11

What are Altricial species?

Answer 11

(nourisher)
The young are more helpless and aren’t mobile from birth or hatching.
Dependent on their parents for food and safety.
EG HUMAN BABIES

Human infants possess many traits that elicit nurture from caregivers.

Question 12

What did Fantz and Goren look at?

(Nativism)

Answer 12

Very young infants prefer to look at faces compared to non-faces
Infants are known to look around the edge or periphery of an object more.

Faces contain lot of information around the periphery so infants may look longer at faces because there is more to look at around the edge.

Question 13

What did Reid find?

Answer 13

Foetuses turn their head more towards face like stimuli than non face like stimuli
He said these mechanisms may be innate

Question 14

What is one way of studying nature and nurture?

Answer 14

Genetic studies - They can test for variations in variable letters, test how these variations correlate with traits

Question 15

What does heritability describe for a given trait?

Answer 15

The proportion of variation in the population that is accounted for by genes

Question 16

What are 5 important points about heritability?

Answer 16

-Heritability estimates refer to a population (tell us nothing about individuals)
-Heritability estimates do not help to identify the specific genes that are involved in a particular trait
-Heritability models predict the average value for a group of people with much more certainty than they predict the individual value for any one person
-Heritability estimates depend on the environment (if env is similar for everyone, heritability estimates will be higher, since the individual differences in the trait cannot be explained by different environments)
-In contrast, if environments are very different for different members of a population, then the heritability estimate is likely to be lower, since different environments will explain more of the variation.

Question 17

How can researchers tease apart the influences of genetics on traits and study heritability?

Answer 17

By looking at genetic relatedness or family resemblance,
researchers can compare individuals closely related to unrelated individuals (compare identical twins to strangers)
Closely related family members should be more similar if a particular trait is influenced by genes

Question 18

What is the Ted’s twin study?

Answer 18

●Twins born in England and Wales between 1994 and 1996,
●Over 15,000 pairs of twins originally signed up for the study and more than 13,000 pairs remain involved
●TEDS aims to explore and gain greater understanding of how nature and nurture, our genes and our environment, influence learning abilities, cognitive abilities, and behaviour
●In addition, the study looks at how these abilities and behaviours relate to one another and change over time
●Starting to identify which particular genes may play a part in influencing these attributes

Question 19

What do tests such as IQ tests develop to measure intelligence in children?

Answer 19

IQ tests such as the Stanford - Binet Test V and the WISC-V have been developed to measure intelligence in children.
Such tests tend to measure verbal ability, problem solving, and reasoning.

Question 20

Why do researchers think that heritability of IQ is high?

Answer 20

The fact that identical twins not raised together had such a high correlation in their IQ, (.75) led many researchers to conclude that the heritability of IQ is high.
However, no such gene has been identified for test scores (Wahlsten, 2012)
Nature (genetics) likely plays a role in determining the variability of IQ in the population but nurture (env) has also been implicated

Question 21

The environment has a large impact on what?

Answer 21

Educational achievement and a wealth of research has supported this idea
(Resources, educational activities at home, school quality)

Question 22

Poverty is hard to measure as it varies across countries. Why?

Answer 22

In poor / developing countries, absolute poverty is often used to refer to limited access & clean water.
In developed countries it is often defined as households that earn 60% or less than the median of that country’s income.
The UK and USA have large income inequality and 1/3 - 1/4 of children live below the poverty line.

Question 23

What did Mani et al find in Poverty and Cognitive Development?

Answer 23

Farmer’s cognitive performance was diminished prior to harvest when compared to their cognitive performance after the harvest.
Concluded that poverty itself could reduce cognitive capacity, perhaps because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources.

Question 24

What did Johnson et al find?

Answer 24

Poverty correlates with physical, cognitive, and neural development
Poverty and malnutrition can have a devastating impact on development

Question 25

The longer children live in poverty, the worse their educational attainment will be. What does this perpetuate?

Answer 25

The cycle of inequality and deprivation that can persist over generations. Addition, research has suggested that poverty in early development can have a greater impact.

Question 26

What did Sure Start (UK, 1998 onwards) provide?

Answer 26

Play sessions for children, family support, parenting advice, speech and language therapy, and nutrition advice.

Question 27

What did Sure Start focus on?

Answer 27

^ positive child behaviours thru positive reinforcement
^ parent-child interactions
setting clear expectations
applying gentle but consistent accountability for problem behaviour

Shows the importance of early interventions to limit potential effects of poverty on development

Question 28

What is the Genotype-Environment Theory (Scarr & McCartney, 1983)?

Answer 28

Proposes that your genotype (genetics) and your parents’ genotype influence which environments you encounter and the types of experiences you have.

Summary - Genes drive experience and how a person experiences their world

Question 29

What are the 3 types of gene- environment effects that Scarr and McCartney proposed that vary in their extent of influence over development?

Answer 29

Passive, Evocative, Active

Question 30

What is the Passive gene-environment effect that Scarr and McCartney proposed in their Genotype-Environment Theory?

Answer 30

Biological parents provide both the genes and the environment for the child
-passive effects decrease with age

Question 31

What is the Evocative genotype-environment effect?

Answer 31

Temperamental characteristics of the child evoke responses from others
Evocative effects remain constant with age

Question 32

What is the Active genotype-environment effect?

Answer 32

Children seek out environments consistent with their genotypes
Active effects increase with age

Question 35

Hart et al found what about the number of books in the home?

Answer 35

The number of books in the home is thought to be an environmental causal effect on children’s reading ability

Question 36

Hart et al said parents share their genes related to reading ability with their children. What does this create?

Answer 36

Gene- environment interplay

Question 37

What are 2 strengths of the genotype-environment theory?

Answer 37

Model is comprehensive and plausible. It examines how both genetic and environmental influences interact to produce traits and behaviour.
Model considers developmental effects. Genetic and environmental effects are not seen as constant but as dynamic factors whose effects may vary over time.