The Nature - Nurture Debate

Question 1

What question is the nature - nurture debate based on?

Answer 1

The nature - nurture debate is based on whether characteristics (personality, intelligence, abnormality etc.) are cause by innate influences (nature) or the result of learning/environmental influences (nurture)

Question 2

What do the nativists, Decartes, argue about the nature - nurture debate?

Answer 2

Nativists argue that human characteristics and knowledge are innate - hereditary

Question 3

What do empiricists, Locke, argue about the nature - nurture debate?

Answer 3

Empiricists argue the mind is a blank slate at birth which is influenced by learning and experience, result of the environment

Question 4

What is the heritability coefficient?

Answer 4

It is a numerical figure ranging from 0 to 1.0 which indicates the extent to which a characteristic has a genetic basis

Question 5

What is the general figure for IQ, based on studies in varying populations?
What does this figure suggest?

Answer 5

The general figure for heritability in IQ is around 0.5 across the varying populations. This suggest that both genetics and the environment are important factors in intelligence

Question 6

What is an example of how nature affects children? (Piaget + child development with four stages)

Answer 6

Piaget suggested children’s development occurred in fixed stages. Every child passed through all four stages in the same order. There is no possibility for a child to miss a stage of development.

Question 7

What does, Lerner, the nurture debate argue against the nature debate?

Answer 7

Nurture debate argues there are environmental influences. Lerner identified there are different levels of the environment

Question 8

What were the different levels of environment that Lerner identified?

Answer 8

1) The mother’s physical and psychological state during pregnancy

2) Through postnatal experiences (eg. social conditions, cultural and historical contexts)

Question 9

Is it difficult to separate nature and nurture as it is so closely intertwined.
Outline the twin studies that shows the difficult to separate the two aspects of the debate:

Answer 9

Gottesman and Shields reviewed studies exploring schizophrenia by using twin and adoption studies.

Findings showed higher concordance rates of schizophrenia in MZ twins (58%) than in DZ twins (12%)

These twin studies are difficult to tell whether high concordance rate are more the result of shared genetics or shared upbringing

Question 10

What is a way to conclude a 16 mark question?

Answer 10

Practically, the nature - nurture debate is impossible to answer. This is because, as Lerner suggests, environmental influences begin as soon as a child is born - ultimately it is hard to separate nature and nurture as they are intertwined

Question 11

What is the interactionist approach to the nature - nurture debate?

Answer 11

In attachments, patterns between infants and their parents are often a result of a two way process, in which the child’s temperament influences the way its parents respond to it. This shows nature creates nurture so heredity and environment interact

Question 12

What does the diathesis - stress model suggest about psychopathology?

Answer 12

The diathesis - stress model suggests psychopathology is caused by a biological/genetic vulnerability (diathesis) which is only expressed when joined with a biological/environment trigger (sensor)

Question 13

Outline the study that demonstrates the diathesis - stress model

Answer 13

A study by Tienari et al found in a group of Finnish adoptees, those most likely to develop schizophrenia had biological relatives with a history of the disorder (vulnerability) and has relationships with their adoptive families that they defined as dysfunctional (trigger)

Question 13

What does epigenetics refer to?

Answer 13

Epigenetics refers to the change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code

Question 14

How does epigenetics occur?

Answer 14

Epigenetics is a process that happens throughout life and is caused by interaction with the environment (like smoking, diets, pollution - leave epigenetic marks on DNA)

Question 15

What do the epigenetics ‘marks’ on our DNA tell our bodies?

Answer 15

The epigenetic marks on our DNA tell our bodies which genes to ignore or use and in turn, may go on to influence the genetic codes of our children

Question 16

What is the third aspect epigenetics introduces into the nature - nurture debate?

Answer 16

Epigenetics introduced the life experience of previous generations as an aspect in the nature - nurture debate

Question 17

How did psychologists show how the life experience of previous generations could have an affect on people?

Answer 17

An experiment by Dias and Ressler where male lab mice were given electric shocks every time they were exposed to the smell of acetophenone and elicited a reaction of fear found the rats’ children also feared the smell even though they had never been exposed to the scent before or received any shocks and so did their grandchildren

Question 18

What is a limitation of the nature - nurture debate? (siblings raised in same environment can have diff upbringing)

Answer 18

Research looking at the influence of the environment is complicated by the fact even siblings raised in the same environment may not have had the same upbringing. Dunn and Plomin suggested that the individual differences may not mean that siblings experience life differently. For example, age/temperament. This explains the findings that MZ twins raised in the same environment do not show perfect concordance rates - supporting the view that heredity and environment cannot be meaningfully separated.

Question 18

What is a limitation of the nature - nurture debate? (niche picking and illogical to separate nature/nurture)

Answer 18

The notion that genes and environment interact is elaborated by constructivism. People create their own nurture by selecting environments that are appropriate for their ‘nature’. For example, an aggressive child may feel more comfortable around other aggressive people. Plomin calls this “niche - picking” and “niche - building”. This provides further evidence that it is impossible and illogical to separate nature and nurture

Question 19

What is a limitation of the nature - nurture debate? ()

Answer 19

Scarr and McCartney put forward a theory of gene - environment interaction, that included three types. Passive interaction where the parents’ genes influence