nature and nurture - issues and debates

Heredity and environment meaning and relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour (interactionist app)

• heredity - genetic transmission of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another

• Environment - any influence on human behaviour that’s not genetic

• Nature - nurture questions impossible to answer as environmental influences in a child’s life begins as soon as it’s born - nature and nurture are closely intertwined it makes little sense to separate the two

• e.g in twin studies = difficult to tell whether high concordance rates are more the result of shared genetics or shared upbringing

• Interactionist app - idea that nature and nurture are linked to such an extent where you can’t separate the two so researchers study how they interact and influence each other

• Eg attachment theory

• Tienari et al : Finnish adoptees those most likely to develop SZ had biological relatives with a history of the disorder (diathesis) and had dysfunctional relationships with their adoptive families (stress)

Epigenetics - what is it

• change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code

• Process that happens throughout life and caused by interaction with the environment

• aspects of our lifestyle like smoking leave epigenetic marks on our dna

• These marks let our bodies know which genes to ignore and which to use, and in turn may go on and influence the genetic codes of our children as well as their children

• Introduces a 3rd element into the nature nurture debate - life experience of previous generations

• Dias and Ressler - gave male lab mice electric shocks every time exposed to smell of acetophenone - used in perfumes. As any behaviourist would predict, the mic showed a fear response as soon as the scent was presented, the mice’s children also feared the smell even though they hadn’t been exposed to acetophenone before or received shocks, so did their grandchildren

Ao3 - maguire et al

• interactionist approach for explaining human behaviour

• Maguire et al studied brains of London taxi drivers using an MRI, found grey matter in the hippocampus than matched control group

• Hippocampus = development of navigational skills in humans

• Must take knowledge test assessing recall of city streets and routes - longer they’d been doing the job, the more the structural difference

• Shows a clear relationship between nature and nurture as by engaging w environment (learning routes) they underwent bio changes (grey matter in hippocampus)

Ao3 of nature nurture debate - practical apps for society

• e.g assuming parenting is a learnt behaviour , offer parenting classes to reduce poor communication and relationships in household and minimise risk of development of SZ

• If we assume SZ has bio roots like high levels of dopamine we could promote medication reducing dopamine activity e.g antipsychotics - reduce symptoms

• Implies both sides of debate have far reaching implications that useful to society = debate could actually benefit our understanding of illnesses like SZ which could lead to practical apps like drug therapy

Ao3 - nature more scientific and observable than nurture

• dopamine hypothesis in SZ

• faulty caudate nucleus in OCD = scientific

• Nurture e.g operant conditioning in phobias = less scientific - easily be other unseen factors in maintaining the phobia