Nature Vs Nurture

Question 1

What is it

Answer 1

The debate regarding the extent to which our psychological characteristics are a product of our hereditary or our environment. Hereditary refers to the genetic basis of behaviour which is inherited (50% from the mother and 50% from the father). Environment refers to all learning experiences and to the physical environment

Question 2

Social psych arguments

Answer 2

• considering wether obedience to authority is from personality or the situation
• when we are agents to those in authority, this might be something that evolved in humans because being in a society protects us and is a survival trait, this is nature
• the authoritarian personality is found in different cultures and suggests personality is innate, however it might just be that all societies generate this sort of personality among others which would point to nurture

Question 3

Cognitive psych arguments

Answer 3

• episodic and semantic memory both use experiences as does reconstructive memory
• reconstructive memory is about the use of schemas, built from past experiences
• focus on brain functioning and brain structure (nature)
• it wouldn’t be expected that there are cultural differences in structure and brain functioning which is nature but there might be cultural differences in what is encoded and recalled and how that affects memory which is nurture

Question 4

Learning theories arguments

Answer 4

• learning theories are all about nurture such as how environmental stimuli are those that condition us to certain responses
• operant conditioning is about rewards and punishments and their effects on behaviour and rewards and punishments are environmental not nature
• social learning theory suggests we copy behaviour from others - nurture
  -phobias might come from evolved survival traits and might be learned from environmental influences