Nature/ nurture

The nature/ nurture debate refers to the degree to which human behaviour is determined by genetics/biology (nature) or learnt through interacting with the environment (nature)

Nature

Nature is the view that behaviour is the reductive of inate biological or genetic factors. Nativists such as Rene Descartes believe that some aspects of behaviour are inate. Behaviours are a result of heredity (the passing of genetic factors from parents to offspring or from one generation to the next). The heritability coefficient is used to measure heredity. his is a numerical figure ranging from 0-1 which indicates the extent to which characteristics have a genetic basis. A value of 1 means the trait is 100% genetically determined.

Biological psychologists suggest sz is caused by genetics. Research by Gottesman suggests the more closely related you are to someone the more likely you are to develop sz, since in MZ twin studies he found a concordance rate of 48% when sharing 100% of DNA. This would suggest that the disorder is a result of biological factors as the nature approach would suggest.

Nurture

Nurture is the view that behaviour is the product of environmental influences. The environment is seen as everything outside the body which can include people, events and the physical world. Empiricists such as John Locke believe that we are born as a tabula rasa and experience is what dictates who we are and our behaviour. This may include childhood experiences or experiences that occurred as a result of the environment.

An example of a theory that is on the nurture side of the debate is Dollard and Millers “cupboard love theory” in part oof the learning approach of attachment. This theory suggests that attachment to the mother is acquired through classical conditioning ( association ) and maintained through operant conditioning (reinforcement) with the unconditional stimulus being food ( the mother becomes associated with the response of pleasure at food).This involves learning and interacting with the environment as the nurture approach would suggest.

Evaluation

One strength is that a strong commitment to either a nature or nurture position corresponds to a belief in hard determinism. The nativist perspective would suggest that anatomy is destiny (biological determinism). Empiricists would argue that interaction with the environment is the sole reason or human behaviour. (Environmental determinism) Hard determinism is a scientific approach ( allowing cause and effect to be established and researched) meaning that taking. A strong nature or nurture approach allows psychology to be more scientific and therefore this leads to many practical applications.

One weakness of this debate is that family studies are often used to investigate the role of nature and nurture. For example, Gottesman looked at concordance rates of sz in family members. And it was found that MZ twins ad a concordance rate of 48% and DZ twins had a concordance rate of 19%. Although this suggests a strong genetic component in the inheritance of mental illness, we can’t laminate the role of the environment as the finding were not 100% suggesting nature and nurture must both play a role.

Compromise

An interactionist approach arguably offers a better explanation to human behaviour. The interactionist approach of sz looks at both biological and psychological explanations. For example, someone can be born with a genetic pre disposition towards the illness, but then something traumatic must occur in the environment to trigger the onset , this is known as the diathesis stress model. The benefit of this explanation has led to affective treatments since it is now standard practice in the UK to treat a patient with both antipsychotics ad cbt as Hogarty found combined treatments to be the most effective.