Debates - Natures vs Nurture

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Debate topic: Nature vs. Nurture

  • Nature vs. Nurture debate is concerned with the extent to which behaviour is determined by the role of genes and the environment.

  • Nature is the view of the Nativists and they believe that we are inherited with a genetic ‘blueprint’ and so behaviours present at birth will develop according to a genetic time-switch through the process of maturation.

  • The nativist view makes several assumptions. One of them is the idea that we should be able to isolate genes for all behaviour, for example, Rose (1997) suggests that there is a direct causal relationship between genes and behaviour.

  • The nativists believe that the characteristics of the human species as a whole are a product of evolution and that individual differences are due to each person’s unique genetic code.

  • Environmentalists believe in the nurture and their view is very well demonstrated by radical behaviourism. According to radical behaviourism, we are born as blank slates and behaviours are acquired as a result of experiences, especially learning.

  • According to this view changes in the environment produce changes in the individual. Within our physical limitations, your environment will determine your behaviour.

  • Psychologically, the environment is defined as all the postnatal external influences to the individual/body. E.g. other people, physical circumstances in an individual’s life. The individual is therefore passive to these and is shaped by them.

  • In practice, hardly anyone today accepts either of the extreme positions and most psychological researchers are now interested in investigating the ways in which nature and nurture interact. This is because there are too many “facts” on both sides of the argument which are inconsistent with “all or nothing” view.

  • The nurture extreme is best seen in the learning approach as it assumes that all behaviour is the product of learning and it focuses only on observable behaviour. For example, according to operant and classical conditioning, we learn from consequences which come from the external environment, which suggests we learn from interaction with our environment, supporting the nurture debate.

  • However, it could be argued that unconditional responses in classical conditioning are reflexes, which is an automatic response to a stimulus, which is a result of nature. Furthermore, our learning methods may be innate and we are born with them, which suggests that there is an evolutionary component in learning.

  • The nature extreme is best seen in the biological approach, which assumes that all behaviour is the product of genetic inheritance or at least physiologically determined - and even this could be linked to a genetic cause, which shows it places the greatest influence on genetic influences. For example, the monoamine hypothesis in explaining depression would suggest that depression sufferers inherit an inability to produce a balanced set of monoamines, resulting in depressive symptoms of low affect. While the cause of depression may be physiological as it is expressed at the synapses, the actual origin of this problem is often linked genetically.

  • Even for schizophrenia, researchers believe that they will eventually find a single gene

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