Nature Vs Nurture Debate

10 Key excerpts on "Nature Vs Nurture Debate"

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  eBook - PDF

  21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook

  • Stephen F. Davis, William Buskist, Stephen F. Davis, William F. Buskist(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  7 60 N ATURE V ERSUS N URTURE W ILLIAM G. C OLLIER University of North Carolina at Pembroke O ne of the most persistent issues in the field of psy-chology is the nature versus nurture debate. This debate concerns how much of an individual, and who s/he is, can be attributed either to nature (i.e., inborn tendencies or genetic factors) or to nurture (i.e., learning or environmental factors). This debate can be one of the most contentious issues in psychology because of the potential serious political ramifications of nature/nurture findings (de Waal, 1999). Although the science of psychology has entered the 1st century, it seems that the nature versus nurture debate will continue to be an active part of psy-chological research for many areas, including research on intelligence, personality, and mental illness. This chapter will begin with a general overview of the history of the nature/nurture question, focusing on the history of psy-chology and how psychologists have emphasized the dif-ferent sides of this debate over time. Next, I discuss current approaches in psychology relevant to the nature/nurture debate and possibly the most controversial aspect of this debate today (i.e., the heritability of intelligence). In addi-tion, the research methods that psychologists have at their disposal to help them determine whether a trait has genetic or environmental influences will be described. Lastly, I discuss the complexities of trying to apply research from the nature versus nurture debate. The nature versus nurture debate stretches all the way back to the earliest days of Western philosophy, when Plato essentially believed that knowledge was inborn in humans and we merely needed to recollect this knowledge (although Plato did not believe that this was necessarily an easy process). We can firmly place Plato’s position on the nature side of the debate.

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  Psychology in Social Context

  Issues and Debates

  • Philip John Tyson, Dai Jones, Jonathan Elcock(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  In this chapter, we consider this controversy around genetic explanations in psychology. We’ll look at the terms of the nature–nurture debate, and its modern expression in behavioural genetics. We’ll see that human psychology is best understood as resulting from an interaction between genetic and environmental factors. We’ll then consider why such genetic explanations are so appealing within everyday discourse, and the problems such explanations may present.

  6.1 The Nature–Nurture Debate

  The nature–nurture – or heredity–environment – debate is a longstanding one. It predates the emergence of psychology, because any form of reflexive discourse needs to consider the origins of human nature and the causes of differences between individuals. The debate concerns the extent to which our nature is determined by our genetic inheritance, or nature , versus the extent to which it is determined by the environment in which we develop, or nurture (Gross, 2009). The nature–nurture debate relates to questions about both universal aspects of human nature and the causes of individual differences (Jarvis, 2000). We’ll focus on explanations of individual differences, and consider behavioural genetics as a modern genetic approach to human differences in the next section.

  6.1.1 The unfolding debate

  The nature–nurture debate in its modern form can be seen in seventeenth-century philosophy: René Descartes believed that human capabilities were determined at birth, while John Locke suggested that the human mind was a blank slate (or tabula rasa) to be written on through experience. The debate appears in the earliest stages of psychology. Herbert Spencer applied evolutionary theory to human society in developing what became known as social Darwinism . This suggested that members of society are engaged in a battle for survival, and that if freed from government interference the “best” will rise to the top of society. This was followed by the eugenic theories of Francis Galton, who suggested that individual differences in capability were the result of biology, and that society could only be improved through policies of selective breeding. Others viewed human character as being environmentally determined, and they advanced theories of reform Darwinism

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  AQA Psychology A Level Paper Three: Issues and Debates

  • Phil Gorman(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 5 The nature-nurture debate    

  Spec check

  The nature–nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach.

  AO1 (Knowledge and understanding): What is the nature-nurture debate?

  The nature–nurture debate is one of the oldest debates in psychology. It is something that is commented on by many people on a regular basis, often without realising and certainly without actually referring to the terms nature or nurture themselves. In fact, the terms nature and nurture didn’t come into common use until the sixteenth century, but the issue has been hotly debated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. More recently, Francis Galton coined the term ‘nature versus nurture’ in the nineteenth century to refer to the debate between those who believe that our genetic inheritance is most important in determining our behaviour and those who believe that all the influences that occur after our birth (or conception) are most important.

  Question time

  When was the last time you talked about some form of behaviour being either due to external influences (e.g. parents) or due to internal influences (e.g. temperament)? What about that crying baby on the bus/train/plane or in the supermarket or cinema? Didn’t you wonder about the kind of parents that might have produced such a ‘brat’? Or whether it might just be a difficult child?

  What do we mean by nature?

  By

  nature

  we mean all those internal influences that lead to behaviour being predetermined or

  pre-programmed

  into us before the environment has had a chance to have an effect. They are sometimes referred to as

  innate characteristics

  because they are features of our personality that are with us from birth and are therefore part of our biological make-up rather than anything learned in response to our situation. Such features are believed to be

  genetic

  as they are as much a part of our DNA as our physical characteristics are, such as eye colour or the size of our feet. Therefore, the belief would be that these features are

  inherited

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  Issues, Debates and Approaches in Psychology

  • Ian Fairholm(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 5 The Nature and Nurture Debate

  In Chapter 4 we saw how ethical issues have been around since the early days of experimental psychology, but the debate we’re going to focus on in this chapter is one of the oldest in the history of psychological thinking. The debate itself started a long time before psychology was officially founded as a science by Wundt in the 1870s. In fact it can be traced back to at least the fifth century BC when philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle became interested in and tried to resolve the debate.

  Obviously if a debate is as long lasting as this, it suggests that it must be an incredibly important one, and indeed it is, although part of the reason it has lasted as long as it has is because for a long time scientists were unable to establish exactly what it was that really lay at the heart of the debate. Even as I write this, it has not been completely resolved, and indeed in certain circles there is still controversy and heated discussion of the issues and their apparent implications, but contemporary research is coming closer to telling us the respective contributions of nature and nurture to psychology. But before I go on, I’d better tell you just what this debate actually refers to.

    Explanation/definition of the two terms

  The nature and nurture debate is fundamentally one about what makes humans (and possibly animals) what they are. Every human being is a unique individual and even identical twins are by no means identical in every aspect of their behaviour, personality and psychological being (in fact if you are friends with identical twins, you will know just how very different they can be). The question is where do these differences come from? Are we born the way we are? Is what makes us the person we are something that exists innately within us? Or are we a product of our personal experiences, the environments we are in and the people we spend time with?

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  Early Childhood and Neuroscience

  Theory, Research and Implications for Practice

  • Mine Conkbayir(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Beyond Nature versus Nurture 99 What is the nature versus nurture debate? The answers to the mystery of human development in relation to the nature versus nurture debate vary enormously and depend on a range of influ -ences. Nativists (supporters of the nature side of the argument) believe that aspects of human development such as intelligence and personality are determined by genetic make-up. Empiricists (supporters of the nurture side of the argument), however, believe that these are acquired (i.e. learned). Empiricists such as John Locke popularized the Latin phrase tabula rasa (meaning ‘blank slate’), conveying the idea that the child’s mind is a blank canvas on which the adult can inscribe knowledge and experience. Noam Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device (1965) is just one example of the nativist perspective of human development. He believed that the ability to understand and reproduce language was innate in all humans due to an existing mental capacity and the requisite vocal mechanisms. Theoretically, this of course makes perfect sense: a baby observes her parent and upon babbling or cooing back, they praise her and engage with her to further encourage her communication, and so the proto-conversations develop. Pause for thought 1 Why do you think the nature versus nurture debate is part of the early childhood discourse? 2 Some people believe that the prenatal environment is nature, while others view it as nurture. What do you think and why? 3a Do you think that characteristics are mainly determined by nature or nurture? 3b Do you think it is possible to answer this question definitively? Explain the reason for your answer. 4 Do you think it is important to distinguish whether characteristics are determined by nature or nurture? Please explain your answer. Some people put pre-natal environment in nature but others count that as nurture.

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  Nature and Nurture

  The Complex Interplay of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Human Behavior and Development

  • Cynthia Garcia Coll, Elaine L. Bearer, Richard M. Lerner, Cynthia Garcia Coll, Elaine L. Bearer, Richard M. Lerner(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Few areas of inquiry have captivated the entire realm of social sciences like the nature versus nurture debate. Investigating the impact of genetic and environmental influences on human development, and the processes involved in mediating these influences, poses perhaps the most fundamental question we can ask about human nature. The nature–nurture question continues to gamer attention, and with the swift progress of the Human Genome Project, interest in this issue will only grow.

  Historically, the intellectual battleground between hereditarians and environmentalists spanned a variety of academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and anthropology, along with professional realms such as education and medicine. The primary debate, in the eyes of the public, was whether nature or nurture was responsible for a given outcome. In later years, the focus shifted from contention to cooperation; rather than asking whether genetic or environmental factors determine a given outcome, researchers recognized the importance of both (Plomin, 1996). Although still often misunderstood by the public, the realization that both heredity and environment play a role in practically all human behavior superseded myopic notions such as genetic determinism or strict environmentalism. Thus, through methods such as twin and adoption studies, behavioral geneticists began to study the relative impact of heredity and environment on human behavior (see Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & McGuffin, 2001).

  Social scientists have also recognized, however, that the calculation of heritabilities for traits and the partitioning of variance into genetic and environmental components—the traditional domain of behavioral genetics—is of limited value (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Turkheimer, 1998). While it may be useful to know, the determination of how much variance is accounted for by genetic and environmental factors does not reveal how the two interact to yield developmental outcomes. The ultimate nature–nurture question, as originally posed by Anastasi (1958) and restated by Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1993), is not, “How much?”— but rather, “How?”

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  AAP Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics

  • AAP Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Robert G. Voigt, Robert G. Voigt(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • American Academy of Pediatrics

    (Publisher)

  5 Nature, Nurture, and Their Interactions in Child Development and Behavior Paul Wang, MD, FAAP 5 Nature and nurture have long been regarded as rival influences on child development and behavior. One school of thought has contended that a child’s behaviors and devel- opmental outcome are determined by nature—that is, by innate biology—while a rival school has argued that nurture—a child’s environment and experiences—is dominant in determining the child’s developmental outcome. While the nature-nurture debate raged among academics, intuitive parents and primary pediatric health care professionals have long known that both sets of factors—the innate and the experiential—are important in the complex processes of child development and behavior. Over the last several decades, science has amassed substantial evidence to document the importance of both nature and nurture. 1 Moreover, current research is elucidating the complex ways in which nature and nurture interact throughout the childhood years. This chapter attempts to provide a framework in which to consider how nature, nurture, and their interactions shape children’s lives. Many examples are provided of both innate and experiential factors that influence children’s development and behavior, and of the mechanisms through which those factors are believed to act. Throughout the chapter, the reader is asked to hold 2 overarching concepts in mind: individual variability and devel-opmental plasticity. Because of individual variability, children differ in how any factor may shape their development and behavior regardless of whether that factor is innate or environmental. As research is beginning to show, much of this variability may be rooted in the interaction of nature and nurture, also known as gene by environment interaction or GxE. Because of developmental plasticity, the effects of both innate and experiential factors can be either augmented or ameliorated by other factors over time.

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  Cognitive Gadgets

  The Cultural Evolution of Thinking

  • Cecilia Heyes(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Belknap Press

    (Publisher)

  T H E D E V E L O P M E N T O F E V E R Y A S P E C T O F H U M A N behavior and cognition depends on a rich, turbulent stew of factors. Even the development of something as simple as fight-or- flight reactions to threatening stimuli depends on complex, looping interactions between a multitude of DNA sequences (genes), epige-netic markers, environmental inputs (such as threat stimuli, pa-rental care, nutrition), and the current state of the neuroendocrine system that these resources have conspired to produce (Loman and Gunnar, 2010). The rich interactive complexity of developmental processes makes it absolutely clear that, in cognition as in other bio-logical systems, there are no pure cases of nature or of nurture; no biological characteristic is caused only by “the genes” or only by “the environment.” The absence of pure cases has led some people to conclude that the nature-nurture debate should be abandoned, but this simply does not follow. The composition of a cake never depends solely on the in-gredients, nor solely on oven settings, but it still makes sense to ask 2 N AT U R E , N U R T U R E , C U LT U R E Nature, Nurture, Culture 25 to what extent, and in what ways, the various ingredients and oven set-tings contribute to the cake’s appearance, flavor, and texture. Simi-larly, although every biological characteristic is the product of nature and nurture, it remains coherent and important to ask, for any particular characteristic, to what extent and in what ways nature and nurture contribute to its development. Indeed, answering these questions is, arguably, one of the core tasks of developmental biology and developmental psychology. Nonetheless, those who are skeptical about contrasting nature with nurture, and innate with acquired characteristics, have empha-sized two genuine and complementary dangers. On the one hand, ef-forts to explain development run the risk of being overwhelmed by the sheer multifactorial complexity of developmental systems.

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  Psychology

  Modules for Active Learning

  • Dennis Coon, John Mitterer, Tanya Martini, , Dennis Coon, John Mitterer, Tanya Martini, (Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Heredity (our “nature”) and environ-ment (our “nurture”) also affect us throughout our lifetimes. Which is more important, heredity or environment ? Neither. Biopsychologist Donald Hebb once offered a use-ful analogy: What is more important to define the area of a rectangle, height or width? Of course, both are essential. Without height and width, there is no rectangle. Although heredity gives each of us a variety of potentials and limi-tations, these are, in turn, affected by environmental influ-ences, such as learning, nutrition, culture, and disease. Some events, such as when Joseph reaches sexual maturity, are Developmental psychology The study of the normal changes in behavior that occur across the life span. with our life experiences to shape who we are and who we will become? Let’s look at this dance in more detail. Copyright 2022 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. PSYCHOLOGY MODULES FOR ACTIVE LEARNING 96 If brown-eye genes are dominant, why do two brown-eyed parents sometimes have a blue-eyed child? If one or both par-ents have two brown-eye genes, the couple’s children can only be brown eyed. But what if each parent has one brown-eye gene and one blue-eye gene? In that case, both parents would have brown eyes. Yet there is one chance in four that their children will get two blue-eye genes and have blue eyes ( ➤ Figure 12.2 ). In actuality, single genes control few of our character-istics. Instead, most are polygenic characteristics (pol-ih-JEN-ik), controlled by many genes working in combination.

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  The Nature of Nurture

  • Theodore D. Wachs(Author)
  • 1992(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  9 The Nature of Nurture Implications and Applications 11 terms of our understanding of both the struc-Lture of the environment and the processes under-lying environmental influences upon behavior and development, w e appear to have come a long w a y from Phase I studies on the environment. A summary of the major points contained in this volume will illustrate not only how far w e have come but also where w e need to go. The Nature of Nurture To understand the role of environmental influences, it is critical to understand that the environment operates as part of a more general system (for purposes of this chapter I am defining a system as a set of variables that have the potential to influence develop-ment, and that are organized within a conceptually meaningful framework; Wachs, 1991d). This more general system encom-passes hierarchically organized multiple environmental compo-nents, nonenvironmental individual characteristics, and bioso-140 141 Implications and Applications cial-biobehavioral parameters. While w e traditionally refer to the environment, a more appropriate label to use when discussing the nature of nurture would be the environmental system. Structurally the environmental system encompasses multiple levels. Higher levels of the environmental system can influence both the nature and the impact of the environmental system at lower levels. The direction of influences within the environmental system, however, is not necessarily from higher to lower levels. The environmental system is potentially bidirectional, both within and across levels. The environmental system functions not only in space but also in time. Thus there appear to be age periods when the individual is more sensitive to specific environmental influences than at ear-lier or later times.

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