Nature vs Nurture debate

Question 1

Biological view ( nature)

Answer 1

People with natural desires and uncontrollable instincts

Examples are: women cuddle babies as a result of their maternal instincts

Question 2

Sociological view ( nurture)

Answer 2

People’s behaviour is socially learned. Most of human behaviour is learned via the process of socialisation
Examples are: language is socially created- if babies are not spoken to they will not be able to speak a language

Question 3

Nurture side- Feral Children

Answer 3

Feral children- children without human contact
Example is Genie: In this case the child had no human contact until the age of thirteen. She was locked in the room on her own strapped to a potty chair. Her father claimed he was protecting her as she was mentally ill but it was not clear as whether this was a result of the isolation. There was studies on genie endlessly when she was discovered. She never learned to speak fluently Andy spent her life in institutional care.

Question 4

Nurture side- Cross cultural studies

Answer 4

Margaret Meads study

Question 5

Nurture side

Answer 5

Sexual violence socialisation

Question 6

Nature side- Twin studies

Answer 6

Bouchard researched identical twins who had been seperated at birth and raised seperately. When they were reunited as adults Bouchard found similarities that were striking.
For example Oskar and Jack were identical twin boys. Oskar was raised by his grandma in Germany, in the catholic faith and as a part of the Hitler youth. Jack was raised in the Caribbean by his father as part of a Jewish faith and spent some of his youth on an Israeli kibbutz

Example of similarities were mannerism, temperament, favourite food, choice in clothes,

Question 7

Nature side- Experiments

Answer 7

Bruce and Brian were twin boys born in Canada. Bruce’s was seven months when his penis was destroyed in a circumcision operation. Over a year later his parents saw a psychologist who was named Dr Moneynon tv and contacted him for help. The doctor argued that nurture is more important than nature and suggested that Bruce could be raised as a girl. He used this as an experiment to test his beliefs that gender identity is a product of natriuretic rather than nature.

The Reimers changed Bruce’s name to Brenda and brought her up to be feminine which involved playing with dolls and wearing dresses. For a time money’s experiment seemed to work and he used this case to argue that nurture was more important than nature. However Brenda was so unhappy at around age 13 she attempted suicide. The parents eventually told the truth and Brenda decided to live again as a male and called himself David. For a time he was much happier and got married. He claimed in interviews that he had always known something was not right. The experience took his toll and David eventually committed suicide