Nurture

Question 1

Nurture

Answer 1

• Environmental influences are acquired through interactions with the environment.
• Empiricists will argue that we are born blank slated and that the environment and experiences within it is what determines all behavioural characteristics.
• Includes both physical and social world - social conditions a child is brought up in.
• Also includes effects on an infant before birth such as a mother who smokes on her psychological state.

Question 2

Behaviourism

Answer 2

• Behaviourists assume all characteristics are learned via exposure to stimuli in the environment and associations made with these or consequences following actions
• Explain infant attachments as the result of learning rather than genes of evolution.
• Infants form attachments as their mothers are associated with feeding or food is rewarding mothers become rewarding as well.
• Describe mental illnesses as learned maladaptive behaviour not as genetically inherited - little Albert learns phobia through classical conditioning.

Question 3

Social Explanations

Answer 3

• Schizophrenia described as the result of poor parenting in dysfunctional families caused by double blind communiciations which leaves child unable to develop normal emotions and communication due to a lack of a stable version of reality.
• Rejection or heredity and an acceptance that social environment shapes behaviour.
• Surtherlands Differential association theory is a sociological theory that proposed that people are socialised into a life of crime.