nurture vs nature

describe the interactionist approach

Seeks to answer the question on whether our behaviour is more influenced by nature or nurture . Despite this, it is proven that any behaviour and characteristic is formed by a mixture of both.

Bowlby claimed that a baby's attachment you is determined by environment ( warmth and parental love)

Kagan argued that a baby's innate personality (temperament) also affects the attachment relationship. Thus nature (child's temperament) may create nurture (parent's response) so environment and hereditary interact.

Therefore, psychologists are now more likely to research the relative contribution of each influence

The interactionist approach- discussing how nature and nurture interact.

describe the diathesis stress model

Suggests behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability (diathesis) which is only expressed when coupled up with a biological or environmental trigger (stressor)

what are epigenetics

Refers to a change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves. It is a process that occurs throughout life and is caused by interaction with the environment.

Aspects of our lifestyle or events we encounter eg smoking, diet or trauma will leave "marks" on our DNA. This will switch genes on or off.

This explains why factors such as smoking have a lifelong influence even after stopping- they have changed the ways your genes will be expressed.

These epigenetic changes may also influence the genetic codes of our children and theirs.

This therefore provides a 3rd element into the debate- the life experience of previous generations.

describe nature

Refers to inherited characteristics or heredity. Early nativists such as Descartes argue that all human characteristics and even aspects of knowledge are innate.

Psychological characteristics such as intelligence or personality are determined by biological factors (genes) just as physical characteristics like eye colour are.

describe nurture

Refers to the influence of experience and environment. Empiricists such as Locke argue that the mind is a blanks slate at birth which is then shaped by the environment.

This view is later used in the behaviourist approach.

Lerner has identified different levels of the environment. This includes prenatal factors such as how physical influences such as smoking or psychological influences like music affect a foetus.

In general, development is influenced postnatally for example in terms of the social conditions a child grows in.

how to measure nature and nurture

The degree to which 2 people are similar on a particular trait can be represented by a correlation coefficient and is called a concordance.

Such concordance provides an estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited- heritability.

This is the proportion of differences between individuals in population regarding a particular trait that is due to genetic variation.

A figure of 0.1(1%) means genes contribute almost nothing to individual differences and 1.0(100%) means genes are the only reasons for individual differences.

The general figure for heritability in IQ is about 0.5 across multiple studies in varying populations. This means that about half of a persons intelligence is determined by genetic factors and the other is environmental.

strengths- adoption studies

The use of adoption studies.

Adoption studies are useful as they separate the competing influences of nature and nurture.

If adoptive children are found to be more similar to their adoptive parents it suggests the environment is the bigger influence.

But if adoptive children are more similar to their biological parents then genetic factors are assumed to dominate.

A meta analysis of adoption studies was completed and found genetic influences accounted for 41% of the variants in aggression.

This shows how research can separate the influences of nature and nurture.

counterpoint

But research suggests that this approach may be misguided. The Nature and nurture concepts cannot simply be separated. According to researchers, people create their own nurture by actively selecting environments that are appropriate for their "nature".

This suggests that it doesn't make sense to view this debate as separate concepts

Strength- real world application

Real world application.

Research suggests that OCD is a highly heritable mental disorder. For example, researchers put the heritability rate at .76. Such understanding can inform genetic counselling as it is importing to understand that high heritability doesn't mean it's inevitable that the individual will develop this disorder. This means that individuals with this genetic risk can gain advice on how to prevent it.

This shows that this debate isn't just a theoretical one, but it is importantly in a practical level to understand the interaction between both nature and nurture.

strength- epigenetics

one example of how genetics can span over generations is through epigenetic effects from events of WW2

in 1944, the Nazis stopped food production to the dutch people. Researchers found that women who gave birth during this famine obviously had lower birth weight babies but as well as this the babies grew up to develop schizophrenia.

this supports the view that life experiences of previous generations can leave epigenetic markers that can affect the future health of an individual