Nature vs nurture

Hi all, This is powerpoint presentation of nature versus nurture debate.

1. Nature vs Nurture Dr. D Raj kiran S enior Resident Dept of Psychiatry KIMSRF

2. Learning objectives Nature versus Nurture controversy Sheldon’s body types Blood types and personality Delusions

3. Charles Darwin “Through natural selection, organisms pass on their genes to subsequent generations, certain abilities become inbuilt into the genetic code. So many abilities that develop in humans are biologically based rather than purely products of learning”.

4. John B Watson “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to be any type of specialist I might select- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors”.

5. Nature Behaviour is caused by innate characteristics: Physiological/ Biological characteristics. All behaviours are present from conception. Genes provide the blueprint for all behaviours; some present from birth, others pre-programmed to emerge with age. Is a developmental approach.

6. Nurture Behaviour is determined by the environment- the things people teach, things they observe. Behaviour is the result of interactions with environment. Born an empty vessel- waiting to be filled up by experiences gained from environmental interaction. Can become anything provided the environment is right. Behaviourist theories are nurture theories.

7. Nature vs Nurture Degree to which human behaviour is determined by genetics/ biology or learned through interacting with the environment.

8. Who created? Initial use of the Nature vs. Nurture Theory was credited to psychologist Sir Francis Galton. Hippocrates described human behaviors as being biological, the result of four different body fluid types called humors. Blood Yellow bile Black bile Phlegm

9. Later, Philosophers thought that people are born as blank slates (i.e. “Tabula Rasa"), and that eventual individual differences develop solely due to the result of environmental influences. 20 th century psychologist John Watson shared a similar perspective, events that take place during early childhood have more influence on what kind of adults we become compared to the effects of our genes.

10. Support for Nature Piaget- Children’s thought processes change at predetermined age-related stages. Freud's theory of aggression Innate drive (called Thanatos ). (Eros- pleasure drive)

11. Language Acquisition- Chomsky maintained language is the result of innate cognitive structures in the mind. Children are predisposed to make sounds and understand grammar. Does not happen from birth but language skills develop rapidly after a certain period of time. Language acquisition follows the same sequence in all children, an inbuilt genetic mechanism is responsible.

12. Genetic basis of Schizophrenia- Adoption studies: compared biological parents and siblings and adoptive parents and siblings. Increased incidence in adopted children with a schizophrenic biological parent. Twin studies: compared identical and non-identical twins. Higher rate for schizophrenia in identical (58%) than non identical twins (12%). Conclusion Significant genetic input into the onset of schizophrenia.

13. Support for Nurture Little Albert- Classical conditioning of fear- phobia acquisition. Provides evidence that the environment can be manipulated to create a phobic response & behavioural change. Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment 24 participants - Randomly assigned to the role of ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’. The behaviour of the ‘normal’ students was affected by the assigned role- seemed to believe in their allocated position.

14. Bandura’s social learning theory- Aggression is a learned from the environment through observation and imitation. Bobo doll experiment. Skinner- Believed that language is learnt from other people via behavior shaping techniques.

15. Nature-Nurture interaction Behaviour is often a result of interaction between nature and nurture. An individuals characteristics may elicit particular responses in other people Temperament- how active, responsive or emotional an infant is influenced in part determines their caregiver’s responses. Gender: people tend to react differently to boys and girls due to expectations of masculine and feminine characteristics.

16. Rutter and Rutter (1993) Aggression hostility – Described how aggressive children think and behave in ways that lead other children to respond to them in a hostile manner. This then reinforces the antisocial child’s view of the world. Thus, aggressive children tend to experience aggressive environments partly because they elicit aggressive responses.

17. Maguire et al. (2000)- Taxi driver study Structural MRI scans of the brains of London taxi drivers compared with controls who did not drive taxis. Hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver Posterior hippocampi of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control subjects. It stores spatial representation of the environment and can expand regionally in people with a high dependence on navigational skills.

18. Applications Nature: Drug therapies can be developed to treat behavioural or psychological problems that have a physiological origin Eg : SSRI’s can be used to treat depression Nurture: If behaviour is susceptible to environmental influences we can consider to adapt our environment Eg : promote helping behaviour , enhance learning, reduce aggression, decrease criminality etc.

19. Thank you