The Nature-nurture Debate Flashcards
What does the nature-nurture debate try to answer?
Whether our behaviour is influenced by nature or nurture more.
What is an example of nature and nurture having influence?
Bowlby’s claimed a babys attachment is determined by the warmth and continuity of parental love.
Kagan proposed a babys innate personality also affects attachment relationship.
Therefore nature creates nurture so environment and heredity interact.
What does the diathesis-stress model suggest behaviour is caused by?
A biological or environmental vulnerability which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger. For example biological explanations of OCD - a person inherits a vulnerability for OCD but may not develop the disorder. However when this is combined with a psychological trigger this may result in the disorder appearing.
What does epigenetics refer to?
A change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves.
How does epigenetics occur?
Occurs throughout life and is caused by interaction with the environment.
What may epigenetics go on and influence?
Genetic codes of future generations.
What do epigenetics introduce?
A third element into the nature-nurture debate - the life experience of previous generations.
What does nature refer to?
Inherited influences/ heredity.
What did early nativists like Descartes argue?
All human characteristics and even some parts of knowledge are innate.
Psychological characteristics such as intelligence are determined by biological factors like physical characteristic such as eye colour.
What does nurture refer to?
The influence of experience and the environment.
What do empiricists including Locke argue?
That the mind is a blank slate at birth shaped by environment - later became an important view in the behaviourist approach.
What did Lerner identify?
Different levels of environment which includes prenatal factors like how physical influences (smoking) or psychological influences (music) affect a foetus - development is influenced postnatally.
What is concordance?
The degree to which two people are similar on a particular trait.
What does concordance provide?
An estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited - heritability.
What is heritability?
The proportion of differences between individuals in a population with regard to a particular trait due to genetic variation.
What does a figure of 1% mean?
Genes contribute almost nothing to individual differences.
What does a figure of 100% mean?
Genes are the only reason for individual differences.
What is the general figure for heritability in IQ?
.5 across multiple studies in varying populations - 1/2 a persons intelligence is determined by genetics and the other half must be environmental.
What studies try to separate nature nurture?
Gottsman schizophrenia study.
Twin studies in OCD and SZ found concordance rates between MZ were higher than DZ twins.
Evaluation: the use of adoption studies
Adoption studies separate competing influences of nature and nurture. A meta-analysis of adoption studies by Rhee and Waldman found genetic influences accounted for 41% of the variance in aggression. This shows how research can separate the influences of nature and nurture.
Evaluation: support for epigenetics
Susser and Lin reported women who became pregnant during the Dutch Hunger Winter went on to have low weight babies. These babies also were 2x as likely to develop SZ when they grew up compared to typical population rates. This supports the view that life experiences of previous generations can leave epigenetics markers that influence the health of their offspring.
Evaluation: real-world application
Nestadt et al put the heritability rate of OCD at .76 which can inform genetic counselling because it is important to understand high heritability doesnt mean it’s inevitable the individual will go on to develop the disorder. This shows the debate isn’t just theoretical but is important at a practical level to understand the interaction between nature and nurture.
Evaluation: implications of nativism and empiricism
Nativists suggest anatomy is destiny and that genetic-makeup determines our characteristics and behaviour which is extremely deterministic. They have tried to link race, genetics and intelligence to eugenics policies however this is controversial and has been linked to genocide. Empiricists on the other hand suggest any behaviour can be changed by altering environmental conditions which is another extremely deteministic view. Using the empiricism view may lead to a society that controls and manipulates its citizens by using these techniques.
