A.C. 2.1 + 3.2 - Describing and Evaluating Biological Theory (UNIT 2) (5)
- Created by: Viliamreis17
- Created on: 01-05-20 19:01
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- A.C. 2.1 - Describe Biological Theories.
- A.C. 3.2 - Evaluate Biological Theories.
- Advantages
- Adoption studies are a way of separating genes from the environment. They keep the genetic link, as they compare the child with their biological families, but as they do not have a shared environment, and differences are likely to be caused by genes.
- Developmental trends can be studied as they are longitudinal studies. The same child/ group of children can be followed as they develop, so characteristics that come about as genes are triggered can be studied.
- The longitudinal approach means that the same group of children are studied so trends can easily be noted. Trends can then be linked to genetic influences.
- The finding of Crowe and Mednick, show the support of Adoption studies.
- Disadvantages
- It is likely that only certain types of family are accepted as adoption parents, so they are all likely to be similar to one another.
- Children tend to be placed in families like their own, meaning the adoptive and biological environments are likely to be similar.
- Children are rarely adopted immediately from birth so they may have spent time living with their biological parents so environment may well play a part. This is a confounding variable.
- Participants who take part in these studies are gathered using volunteer samples. This introduces an element of bias in the sampling and may therefore not be generalisable.
- Advantages
- Adoption Studies
- Twins often share their environment this is where adoptions are often useful when looking at the effects of 'Nature VS Nurture'
- Child who is similar to adoptive parents, environment (Nurture) has a bigger impact.
- Child who is similar to biological parents, genetics (Nature) has a bigger impact.
- Crowe (1972) - adoptee's biological mother had a conviction they had a 50% chance of having a conviction.
- If adoptee's biological mother did not have a conviction they had a 5% chance of having a conviction.
- Mednick - studied 14,000 adopted children, found high proportion of boys with criminal convictions had biological parents with criminal conviction.
- found no relationship between number of criminal convictions of adoptive parents and their adopted children.
- found significant correlation between the number of adopted children with criminal convictions and their biological offspring.
- found no relationship between number of criminal convictions of adoptive parents and their adopted children.
- A.C. 3.2 - Evaluate Biological Theories.
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