Nature vs Nurture Debate Flashcards
Define Nature
- Is the view that behaviour is the product of innate biological or genetic factors.
Define Heredity
- (Genetic inheritance).
- Is the process in which traits are passed down from one generation to the next.
Define Nurture
- Is the view that behaviour is a product of environmental influences.
Define environment
- Is seen as anything outside the body which can include people, events and the physical world.
Define Interactionist approach
- The interactionist approach is the view that both nature and nurture work together to shape human behaviour (Nature + Nurture= IA).
Example of nature…
Bowlby proposed that children come into the world biologically programmed to form attachments because this will help them survive.
- This suggests that attachment behaviours are naturally selected, and pass on as a result of genetic inheritance (heredity mechanisms).
Example of nurture….
Behavioural psychologists explain attachment in terms of classical conditioning, where food (UCS) is associated with the mother (NS), and through repeated pairings, the mother becomes the CS who elicits a CR in the child.
- Therefore a child forms an attachment based on the pleasure experienced as a result of being fed.
Example of the interactionist approach…
The genetic disorder PKU (phenylketonuria) is caused by the inheritance of two recessive genes.
- People with PKU are unable to break down the amino acid phenylalanine which builds up in the blood and brain causing mental retardation.
- However, if a child with PKU is placed on a low protein diet for the first 12 years, they avoid to this potentially serious lifelong disorder.
Example of the interactionist approach pt.2…
The disorder PKU (nature) is not expressed because of an altered environment (low protein diet= nurture).
- PKU is a clear example of the interactionist approach. Nature (genetic inheritance) and nurture (high protein) have to work together for someone to experience the negative effects of this disorder.
