Nature Nurture

Question 1

What is the nature nurture debate?

Answer 1

=A debate concerned with whether behaviour and thoughts are a product of inherited or learned characteristics.

Question 2

What is nature?

Answer 2

Nativists such as Descartes have argued that human characteristics are innate and result of heredity. Eye colour and personality are both a result of our biological genetic make up.

Question 3

What is heredity?

Answer 3

the genetic transmission of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another.

Question 4

What is the heritability coefficient?

Answer 4

indicates the extent to which a characteristic has a genetic basis. 0-1.0 where 1.0 is entirely genetic. IQ=0.5.

Question 5

Where do the approaches lie on the nature/nurture scale?

Answer 5

NATURE-biological, psychodynamic, cognitive, humanistic behaviourist-NURTURE.

Question 6

What is nurture?

Answer 6

Empiricists believe the mind is a blank slate at birth and learning and experience shape our behaviour and thoughts. The ‘environment’ is a broad concept.

Question 7

What did Rochard Lerner suggest?

Answer 7

1986 identified different levels of the environment. This includes prenatal factors such as a mother smoking during pregnancy, and postnatal conditions like the context they are part of socially and historically. This suggests the nature-nurture debate is impossible to answer because the environment begins at birth or perhaps before.

Question 8

Why do twin studies still not explain the debate?

Answer 8

it is hard to tell if high concordance rates are a result of a shared upbringing or shared genes.

Question 9

What is the internationalist approach?

Answer 9

Behaviours and characteristics arise from a combination of both.
For example, in attachment, a child’s innate temperament will influence the way in which its parents respond to it, and these responses will also affect the child’s behaviour. In this sense, the child’s nature creates the nurture. Kagan 1984.

Question 10

What do modern psychologists think about the debate?

Answer 10

Psychologists are now interested in the relative contribution of each element, rather than defining certain behaviours as nature or nurture.

Question 11

What is the diathesis stress model?

Answer 11

A model suggesting a behaviour is caused by a genetic/biological vulnerability which is only expressed when triggered by an environmental stressor.

Question 12

Tienari et al:

Answer 12

(2004) found that in a group of Finnish adoptees that were most likely to develop schizophrenia had biological relatives with the disorder and had dysfunctional relationships with adopted parents.

Question 13

What are epigentics?

Answer 13

Change in our genetic activity without the genes themselves changing.
Caused by interaction with the environment. Lifestyles and events leave ‘marks’ on our DNA, which tell our body which genes to ignore or to use, resulting in an influence on the genetic codes of our children.

Question 14

How do epigenetics influence the debate?

Answer 14

This introduces a third element into the debate- the life of previous relatives.

Question 15

Examples of epigenetics?

Answer 15

Psychological state, diet, drugs, exercise, disease exposure, social interactions.

Question 16

Dias and Ressler?

Answer 16

Dias and Ressler (2014)- gave male lab mice electric shocks every time they were exposed to the smell of acetophenone. The mice showed a fear reaction when the scent was presented. However, the mice’s children also showed a fear response despite not being exposed to the smell before.

Question 17

Strengths: use of adoption studies?

Answer 17

if adoptees are more similar to adoptive parents/biological parents. A meta analysis by Rhee and Waldman found genetic influences accounted for 41% variations in aggression. Research can separate the two.

Question 18

Strengths: epigenetics?

Answer 18

effects of the Second World War were seen for generations. In Holland, where Nazi blocked the distribution of food, women who became pregnant during the famine went on to have babies with extremely low birth weight and they had more than twice the normal chance of developing schizophrenia.

Question 19

Strengths: real world application?

Answer 19

Knowing the heritability rate of disorders allows for people who may develop the disease to receive counselling and advice. Real world application.

Question 20

Weaknesses: downside of extremes?

Answer 20

an extreme nativist/determinist stance has led to controversy which attempted to link race, genetics and intelligence to eugenic policies. In contrast, the idea that any behaviour can be changed by experience and the environment could lead to a model of society that manipulates and controls its citizens using these techniques.

Question 21

Weaknesses: experiences of siblings?

Answer 21

Even siblings in the same family may not have had the same experience. Plomin 1990 suggests individual differences mean life events are experienced differently, therefore the environment and heredity cannot be meaningfully separated.

Question 22

Weaknesses: constructivism?

Answer 22

people create their own nurture by selecting environments that are appropriate for their nature, this environment then affects development. Plomin 1994 called this niche picking and niche building. It is illogical to try to separate nature and nurture.