Nature vs. Nurture Flashcards
What is the central question surrounding the nature vs nurture debate?
Is the extent to which our behavior is determined by our biology (nature) and the genes we inherit from our parents versus the influence of environmental factors (nurture) such as home school and friends.
What is the nature debate?
All our behavior is determined by our biology, our genes
What dies the evolutionary explanations of human behaviour examplify?
The nature approach is psychology. The main assumption underlying this approach is that any particular behavior has evolved because of its survival value.
What did Bowlby suggest?
That attachment behaviors are displayed because they ensure that survival of an infant and the perpetuation of the parents’ genes. This survival value is further increased because attachment has implications for later relationship formation which will ultimately promote successful reproduction.
What are strengthens of nature?
Bowlby’s explanation of attachment does not ignore environmental influences, as is generally true for evolutionary explanations. In the case of attachment theory, Bowlby proposed that infants become most strongly attached to the caregiver who responds most sensitively to the infant’s needs.
The experience of sensitive caregiving leads a child to develop expectations that others will be equally sensitive, so that they tend to form adult relationships that are enduring and trusting.
What are limitations of nurture?
Problem of the transgenerational effect. behavior which appears to be determined by nature (and therefore is used to support this nativist view) may in fact be determined by nurture! e.g. if a woman has poor diet during her pregnancy, her unborn child will suffer.
This means that the eggs with which each female child is born will also have these negative effects. This can then affect the development of her children a whole generation later.
This means that a child’s development may in fact be determined by their grandmother’s environment (transgenerational effect). This suggests that what may appear to be inherited and in born is in fact caused by the environment and nurture.
What is the nurture debate?
All behavior is learnt and influenced by external factors such as the environment etc. Supports of the nurture view are ‘empiricists’ holding the view that all knowledge is gained through experience.
Which approach is associated with the nurture debate?
The behaviorist approach is the clearest examples of the nurture position in psychology, which assumes that all behavior is learned through the environment. The best known example is the social learning explanation of aggression, using the Bobo doll.
What are strengths of the nurture?
Empirical evidence shows that behavior is learnt and can be modified through conditioning.
What are limitations of the nurture?
Behaviorist accounts are all in terms of learning, but even learning itself has a genetic basis. For example, research has found that mutant flies missing a crucial gene cannot be conditioned (Quinn et al., 1979).
