Lesson 5 - Nature vs Nurture Debate Flashcards
What is an environment?
The environment is seen as everything outside the body, which can include people, events and the physical world.
What is heredity?
Heredity is the process by which traits are passed down genetically from one generation to the next.
What is the interactionist approach?
An interactionist approach is the idea that biology (nature) and the environment (nurture) work together to determine behaviour.
What is the Nature vs Nurture debate?
The nature vs nurture debate is one of the oldest debates in psychology. It focuses on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance, and environmental factors, and how they individually affect human development and behaviour.
What is the Nature side of the debate?
Nature is the view that behaviour is the product of innate biological or genetic factors.
Heredity is deeply tied in with this theory. Characteristics such as height, weight, life expectancy and vulnerability to certain illnesses has been positively correlated with genetic relatedness.
This alongside usage of twin and family studies, claims that many of our characteristics are determined biologically.
What is the Nurture side of the debate?
Nurture is the view that behaviour is the product of environmental influences.
The environment is everything outside the body that can have an effect on our characteristics.
Environmentalists (also known as empiricists), believe that the human mind is a blank slate that is slowly filled up over time with experience.
Evaluation of the Nature / Nurture debate - Interactionist approach
A strength of the nature-nurture debate is the interactionist approach. This is essentially a theory that claims that heredity and the environment act together. We don’t need to defend the extreme sides of the argument, when the interactionist approach is the best and most logical result.
The interactionist approach is best illustrated by the genetic disorder PKU. PKU is caused by the inheritance of two recessive genes, and it can cause mental retardation. If the child is identified with it early, they are put on a low protein diet for the first 12 years. This means that the genetic disorder can be prevented by an altered environment.
Evaluation of the Nature / Nurture debate - Diathesis-stress model
