Nature - Nurture Debate Flashcards
The Nature-Nurture Debate
What is it?
The nature-nurture debate is concerned with the relative contribution of both heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) in determining behaviour - it is the extent to which different aspects of behaviour are the product of inherited and acquired characteristics.
Nature
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How is it measure?
E.g. IQ
Focuses on INNATE factors on behaviour. Mental and physical characteristics are seen as transmitted from one generation to another through HEREDITY.
Associated with NATIVISTS who argue that individuals are born with an inherited blueprint.
The heritability coefficient is used to assess heredity. It is a numerical figure ranging from 0 to 1.0
which indicates the extent to which a characteristic has a genetic basis. (A value of 1 means entirely genetically determined)
The general figure for heritability for IQ is around 0.5 suggesting that both genetics and environment are important factors in intelligence.
Nurture
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Measure how?
Focuses on how learning and experience (ENVIRONMENT) can influence behaviour. Environmental influences on behaviour include any factors that are not genetic including people, events and the social world.
Associated with empiricists who believe that the baby’s mind at birth is like a blank slate on which experience will write.
There are different levels of the environment. These can be defined in PRE NATAL terms such as the mother’s physical or emotional state during pregnancy (Inner biological)
or more generally through POST NATAL experiences such as social conditions the child grows up in (physical environmental)
and where and when a child is born(the cultural and historical context they are part of)
the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour
From a methodological point of view the nature-nurture debate is impossible to answer:
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Why do we say relative contribution?
For a start, the types of environment described demonstrate that the environment impacts on the child even before birth.
Is now accepted that nature and nurture are so closely intertwined, that practically and theoretically, it makes little sense to separate the two.
As such, the focus of the nature-nurture debate changed over recent years, and psychologists are now more likely to ask about the relative contribution of both - the extent to which genetics affect behaviour and also how much learning and experience account for what we do.
The interactionist approach
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The interactionist approach takes a stance somewhere between the extreme nature and nurture positions. It argues hat heredity (nature) and the environment (nurture) have an influence on each other they are linked to such an extent that it does not make sense to separate the two.
explain what debate is meant by the nature nurture
(2 marks).
concerned with the relative importance of both heredity (inherited factors such as genes) and environment (learning and experience) in determining behaviour
The Diathesis stress model
For schizophrenia
Highlights interaction between the two
INATE predisposition to develop disorder (nature)
triggered by environmental stress such as family dysfunction (nurture)
Different approaches and the nature nurture debate
Decide where on the continuum each approach falls.
Nature. Nurture
Bio
Behaviourist
SLT
Cog
Psycho
Humanism
Application of Nature Nurture debate
SCHIZOPHRENIA
NATURE
NURTURE
INTERACTIONISM
Evidence:
Nature: genetic explanation suggests skz is inherited through genes
Nurture: suggests szk triggered by peolle around us
Family dysfunction (expressed emotion and double bind)
INTERACTIONISM:
Diathesis stress model:
Heredity (genetic predisposition) and environment interaction( family dysfunction)
Triggers onset of
Concordance rate (identical twins):
46% identical twins
Suggesting can’t be 100% genetics
Application of Nature Nurture debate
FORENSIC SCIENCE
NATURE
NURTURE
INTERACTIONISM
Nature: genetic explanation
Suggests certain genes predispose you to offending
Nurture:
Differential association theory
Criminals influenced by people in our environment - learn through associations and families behaviour
Procriminal > anticriminal attitudes
INTERACTIONISM
Diathesis stress model
Genes Genetic predisposition
Stress environmental figure (e.g. parents)
Evaluation of NATURE NURTURE debate
Implications of nativism and empiricism:
Shared and unshared environments
Constructivism
Relationship with other debates
Evaluation
Implications of nativism and empiricism
The implications of adopting a purely nature argument - that ‘anatomy is our destiny’, in that our inherited genetic make-up determines our behaviour, with the environment having little input.
This extreme viewpoint has been linked to 20th century eugenics (enforced selective breeding) as advocated by, for example, the Nazis. If nature determines behaviour, then the human stock can be improved by selective breeding.
In contrast, but equally controversially, empiricists would suggest that any behaviour can be changed through altering environmental conditions. For example, behaviour shaping used by behaviourists attempts to change unwanted behaviour through conditioning. In extreme situations, this could lead to a society that controls and manipulates its citizens. E.g. aversion therapy for homosexuality.
Thus to adopt an extreme nature or nurture argument has an impact in terms of contrasting political ideals.
Evaluation
Shared and unshared environments
Research attempting to remove the influence of the environment is complicated by the fact that even siblings raised in the same family may not have experienced the same upbringing.
Individual differences mean that siblings may actually experience the same life events differently-for example,
age and/or temperament would mean that a life event such as divorce may affect two siblings differently.
This would explain the finding that even MZ twins reared together do not show perfect concordance rates which supports the view that heredity and environment cannot be meaningfully separated.
Evaluation
Constructivism
The notion that genes and environment interact can’t be separated is further reinforced by constructivism.
This is the idea that people create their own nurture by actively selecting environments that are appropriate for their nature.
This ‘niche picking’ further highlights how it is impossible to separate nature and nurture influences on a child’s behaviour.
Gene-environment interaction
three types of interaction:
Passive interaction - the parents genes influence the way they treat their children -for example, musically gifted parents are likely to ENCOURAGE musical activity in their own children.
Evocative interaction - the child’s genes influence and shape the environment in which they grow up-for example, a musically gifted child WILL BE PICKED to take part in school concerts.
Active interaction-the child creates its own environment through people and experiences it SELECTS the musical child will choose similar musically talented friends.
These further points to the complex relationship between nature and nurture
Evaluation
Relationship with other debates:
A strong commitment to an extreme nature or nurture perspective corresponds to a belief in hard determinism.
Nativist approach believes that anatomy is destiny while empiricist argue that interaction with environment.
This equates to biological and environmental determinism
