Nature v. Nurture

What is Nature?

• All of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are
• Includes our physical appearance and personality traits

What is Nurture?

• All of the environmental variables that impact who we are
• Includes our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and our surrounding culture

The Debate

• The nature v. nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. It centers on the contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development.
• There are many different outlooks on this debate, including those of Nativists, tabula rasa believers, and Empiricists/Behaviorists.

Nativists

• Philosophers such as Plato and Descartes
• Belief that all or most behaviors and characteristics are the results of inheritance or innate behavior

tabula rasa Believers

• John Locke
• Suggests that the mind begins as a blank slate, and that our lives are determined by our experience

Empiricists

• John B. Watson
• Belief that all or most behaviors and characteristics result from learning

Examples

• According to Chomsky's concept of a language acquisition device, all children are born with the ability to both learn and speak language.
• According to Albert Bandura's social learning theory, people learn by observing the behavior of others.

Interactions

• The interaction between heredity and environment is the most important factor of all
• Examples: Height or Perfect Pitch when singing

Contemporary Views

• Psychologist Francis Galton believed that intelligence was the result of genetics
• People are beginning to realize that asking how heredity or environment influence a particular trait is not the right approach
• Many researchers today are interested in seeing how genes modulate environmental influences