Nature vs Nurture - AO1

Question 1

What is nature?

Answer 1

Refers to the inherited characteristics passed down through genetics
In its extreme, all behaviours are believed to be the result of biological factors

• Rene Descartes thought that knowledge was present in our soul from birth

Question 2

What are nativists?

Answer 2

Psychologists who take the nature view

Question 3

What is nurture?

Answer 3

Refers to the influence of experience and the environment on behaviour

Question 4

What are empiricists?

Answer 4

Those who take the nurture view

• John Locke (philosopher) who famously argued that humans are born as “blank slates” for all experience to be written on

Question 5

What is the interactionist approach?

Answer 5

A way to explain the development of behaviour in terms of a range of factors, including biological, environmental and psychological.
Rather than ‘adding up’, these factors combine in varying and complicated ways, meaning the resulting characteristics will be hard to predict.

Question 6

What is the diathesis stress model?

Answer 6

Suggests behaviour is caused by a biological vulnerability (diathesis) only expressed when coupled with an environmental trigger/stressor

Question 7

What is an example of the diathesis stress model?

Answer 7

OCD – person inherits genetic vulnerability but may not develop OCD unless combined with a trigger (event, drugs, etc.)

Question 8

What is epigenetics?

Answer 8

A change in genetic activity, without a change in genetic code/structure, that can be passed on to children. Life experience (nurture) impacts genes (nature)

Question 9

What is an example of epigenetics?

Answer 9

In 1944, Nazis blocked food distribution to Dutch people. Women pregnant during the famine had babies with low birth weights who were twice as likely to go on to develop schizophrenia