To what extent do social psychology and cognitive psychology consider human behaviour to be determined by nurture? Flashcards
Cog assumptions
Behaviour is determined by how we process info, brain is hardwired and programmed by the environment. Therefore, suggesting behaviour is both nature and nurture. Within cognitive psychology, the multi-store memory suggests we all have a sensory store, a short-term memory store and a long-term memory store. Therefore, suggesting memory is a consequence of nature.
Baddeley found STM encodes acoustically and LTM encodes semantically. Therefore, as everyone encodes the same this suggests a biological similarity in everyone, suggesting behaviour is due to nature. However, cognitive psychology does consider the role of nurture. Bartlett suggests LTM is determined by schemas which are based on past experience. Therefore, memory is impacted by our environment and so nurture. Zz
Social assumptions
Behaviour is determined by social situation, culture and other people. Therefore, suggesting behaviour is nurture. Within social psychology, the social impact theory says obedience is a consequence of social forces - strength, number and immediacy. Therefore, suggesting obedience is a consequence of nurture.
Milgram found that obedience rates dropped from 65% to 22.5% when the experimenter was on a telephone in a different room. Therefore, showing immediacy of the message increases obedience suggesting its due to nurture. However, social psychology does consider the role of nature. Blass did cross cultural research and found obedience in every culture. TF showing obedience happens in all cultures meaning its innate suggesting its due to nature.
Nature Nurture
Social and cog can mainly be explained mainly by nurture which is behaviour that is determined and acquired from environment and experiences and culture. However it can also be explained by nature which is behaviour that comes from innate factors via biology like genes hormones and brain. Within cog psych WMM says everyone has a VSS and PS in there short term memory. Therefore, suggesting memory is a consequence of nature. However it also considers nurture with MSM which considers effect of attention and rehearsal on memory which are individual differences based on environment. Therefore memory is impacted by our environment and so nurture.
Conclusion
There is many theories in social and cog suggesting behaviour is due to nurture. However a lot of the research on memory shows sores that are always there in all humans. Behaviour is mainly determined by nurture but cant alone fully explain behaviour. TF should take an interactionist view to fully explain behaviour.
