Nature and Nurture Flashcards
What is nature?
Nature refers to genetic inheritance
What is nurture?
Nurture refers to external influences on development such as environment or social influences.
How may physical characteristics be determined?
Certain physical characteristics are biologically determined by genetic inheritance, for example, eye colour, hair colour, skin pigmentation.
Other physical characteristics may be determined by genetic make-up of birth parents (Height, weight, life expectancy, vulnerability to specific diseases) debate over whether psychological traits (Behavioural tendencies, personality traits, mental abilities) are wired in or influenced by environment.
What does Bowlby’s theory of attachment suggest?
Bowlby’s theory of attachment is biological (nature) perspective, explains bond between mother and child being innate. Chomsky’s proposal that language is developed through innate language acquisition device is a biological idea. In contrast, Bandura’s social learning theory is based on understanding through environmental influences (nurture) such as imitation and role modelling.
What does Bandura’s social learning theory suggest?
, Bandura’s social learning theory is based on understanding through environmental influences (nurture) such sa imitation and role modelling.
What is maturation?
Characteristics and differences not observed at birth but emerge later in life, are referred to as maturation. Nature perspective is based on assumption that all individuals have an inner biological clock that determines rate of physical development.
What is Gesell’s maturation theory?
In 1940-50’s he developed a new methodology “Normative approach” to researching child development which involved observing large number of children to find skills and abilities of each age group. His findings established milestones for each developmental aspect. Gesell noticed that every child developed at their own pace, he concluded that development was predetermined and environment had little influence.
How do milestones help development?
If a child experiences delayed development, then the problem is heredity (genetic factors). Milestones are helpful for educators and parents today to measure development and recognize developmental delay.
What do critics of Gesell state?
Critics of Gesell state maturation theory isn’t helpful in explaining individual/cultural differences for children with learning difficulties.
What is Bandura’s social learning theory and what is the study which backs it up?
Bandura’s social learning theory
Based on observations of learning through observing behaviour of others. A young child may model behaviours, however, they may model unwanted behaviours such as hitting.
Bandura developed four stages of behavioural learning
Firstly, child notices behaviour of other people
Secondly, child internalises behaviour by remembering what they have observed
Thirdly, they may reproduce the behaviour when opportunity occurs (Positive or negative reinforcement) children will repeat or desist the behaviour.
Bandura Bobo doll demonstrates that children learn and copy aggressive behaviour by observing adults behaving aggressively. Importance of modelling appropriate behaviours is recognised by many teachers and parents.
What is the stress diathesis model?
Stress diathesis model
Psychological model explains how stress caused by life events (nurture) can interact with individual’s genetic vulnerability (nature) to impact on mental wellbeing. According to this theory, some individuals are born with certain biological or genetic predispositions to mental illness, refers to mental illness.
A person who has a genetic predisposition to a psychological disorder might not develop the disorder if they experience stress in life.
High levels of stress such as family conflict, abuse, trauma, or school problems could trigger onset of people with predisposition.
What are Genetic Factors that affect development?
Each living cell in the human body has a nucleus containing 23 pairs of chromosomes, in each pair of chromosomes, one comes from the father and one from the mother.
Each chromosome carries units of inheritance known as genes, and these genes interact.
Genes are made from DNA and contain instructions for producing proteins, these regulate human development.
