The Nature-Nurture Debate

Question 1

What is meant by the nature debate?

Answer 1

• Refers to inherited influences or heredity.
• Early nativists argued that all human characteristics & even some aspects of knowlege are innate.
• Psychological & Physiological characteristics are determined by genes.

Question 2

What is meant by the nurture debate?

Answer 2

• Refers to the influence of experience & the environment
• Empiricists such as Locke argued that the mind is a blank state at birth which is then shaped by the environment

Question 3

What is the interactionist approach?

Answer 3

• The view that both nature & nurture work together to shape human behaviour

Question 4

What are epigenetics?

Answer 4

• Refers to a change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves
• Process that happens throughout life & is caused by interaction with the environment
• Aspects of our lifestyle or event we encounter (e.g. smoking or war) leave ‘marks’ on our DNA

Question 5

Give one strength of the nature nurture debate.

Answer 5

• OS: Is the use of adoption studies
• Adoption studies are useful because they separate competing influences of nature & nurture
• If adopted children are found to be more similar to their adoptive parents it suggests that the environment is a bigger influence
• Whereas if adopted children are more similar to their biological parents then genetic factors are presumed to dominate

Rhee & Waldman found that genetic influences accounted for 41% of the variance in aggression.
This shows how research can separate the influences of nature & nurture

Question 6

Give another strength of the nature nurture debate.

Answer 6

OS: Support for epigenetics
One example of how environmental effects can span generations presumably through epigenetic effects comes from event of the second world war
In 1944 Nazis blocked distribution of food to the dutch people & 22000 died of starvation

• Ezra Susser & Shang Lin report that women who became pregnant during the famine went on to have low birth weight babies
• These babies were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia when they grew up compared to more typical population rates.

Supports view that the life experineces of previous generations can leave ‘epigenic markers’ that influence the health of their offspring