Nature-nurture debate Flashcards
What is the nature-nurture debate?
- concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics and also how they interact with each other > an interactionist approach
Why is it not a debate about one or the other?
- because any behaviour/ characteristic arises from a combination of both e.g.
- Bowlby > baby’s attachment type is determined by the warmth & continuity of parental love (environmental influence)
- Kagan > baby’s innate personality (temperament) also affects attachment relationship
nature creates nurture =interaction
How is the diathesis stress model an example of an interactionist theory?
- it suggests behaviour is caused by biological or environmental vulnerability (diathesis)
which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental ‘trigger’ (stressor)
e.g. a person with a genetic vulnerability for OCD may not develop disorder> combined with a trigger (traumatic experience) may result in the disorder
What is epigenetics?
- refers to a change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves
- caused by interaction with the environment
How does epigenetics occur and what does this lead to?
- lifestyles or events e.g. smoking & diet to trauma leave ‘marks’ on our DNA which switch genes on and off
- this changes the way genes are expressed and influences genetic codes of children and their children
What is nurture?
- refers to inherited influences or heredity
What did early nativists argue?
- Descartes argued that all human characteristics and even some aspects of knowledge are innate
- psychological characteristics like intelligence or personality are determined by biological factors (genes) just as physical characteristics are
What is nurture?
- nurture refers to the influence of experience and the environment
What did Lerner identify?
- different levels of the environment
- prenatal factors, e.g. how physical influences (smoking) or psychological influences (music) affect a foetus
- postnatal factors influence development e.g. social condition child grows up in
What do empiricists argues?
-
John Locke argued that the mind is a blank state at birth ( tabula rasa) which is then shaped by the environment
-important feature of behaviourist approach
How is nature and nurture measured?
- the degree to which two people are similar on a particular trait can be represented by a correlation coefficient and is called concordance
- concordance rates provide estimates about the extent to which a traits inherited - heritability
- What is heritability?
- this measures the proportion of differences between individuals in a population, with regards to a particular trait that is due to genetic variation
What does a figure of .01 and 1.0 mean?
.01 (1%) - means genes contribute almost nothing to individual differences
1.0 (100%)- means genes are the only reason for individual differences
- IQ is 0.5 across cultures
What is a strength of research into the nature-nurture debate?
- use of adoption studies > they separate the competing influences of nature & nurture
- if adopted children are found to be more similar to their adoptive parents- suggests environment is the bigger influence
- if adopted children more similar to bio parents > genetics factors presumed to dominate
- e.g. a meta- analysis of adoption studies by Rhee & Waldman > found that genetic influences accounted for 41% of the variance in aggression
- showing how research can separate the influences of nature & nurture
What is a counterpoint to the first strength of the debate?
- However, research suggests that this approach may be misguided
- nature and nurture are not two entities that can simply be pulled apart According to Plomin > people create their own ‘nurture’ by actively selecting environments that are appropriate for their nature
- e.g. a naturally aggressive child is likely to feel more comfortable with children who show similar behaviours and will choose their environment accordingly > Then, their chosen companions further influence their development
- refers to this as niche-picking
- This suggests that it does not make sense to look at evidence of either nature or nurture separately
What is another strength of nature- nurture debate?
- support for epigenetics
- example of how environmental affects can span generations through epigenetic effects comes from WW2
- 1944 Nazis blocked distribution of food to Dutch people, 22,000 died of starvation - Dutch hunger winter
- Susser & Lin > women who became pregnant during famine went on to have low weight babies
- theses babies were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia when they grew up compared to more typical rates
- supports that life experiences of previous generations can leave epigenetic markers that influence health of offspring
How does the nature-nurture debate have real-life application?
- research suggests OCD is a highly heritable disorder e.g. Nestadt et al put the heritability rate at .76
- understanding can inform genetic counselling > important to understand that high heritability does not mean it is inevitable individual will develop disorder
- people with high genetic risk of OCD can receive advice about the likelihood of developing the disorder (prevention)
- debate is important on a practical level