Heredity vs. Environment in Human Development
Nature- inborn traits and characteristics inherited from parents
Nurture- environmental influences, both before and after birth
ACTIVE (organism) VS PASSIVE (mechanistic)
Organismic- People are active growing organisms that set their own development in motion ACT not react to environmental influences
*cannot predict behavior by simple responses to environmental stimulus
Emphasize qualitative change, see development occurring in STAGES each s stage builds on previous stage.
Freud, Erikson, Piaget
Mechanistic- People are like machines that REACT to environmental influence, if we learn enough about human Machine we can predict what they will do
*identifies and isolates factors that make people react as they do
Focus on quantitative change, see development as continuous
Watson, learning theories
Quasi-Organismic- People change as there world changes them
Perspective Belief Stage Oriented Theories
PSYCHOANALYTIC Behavior is controlled by powerful unconscious urges
Personality influenced by society& develops through series of crises Yes/Mechanistic
Yes/Organismic Freud's Psychosexual
Erickson's Psychosocial
COGNITIVE Changes in thought occur between 0 to adolescence
Human processors of symbols
Yes/Organismic
No BOTH
Piaget Cognitive Stage
Information processing
LEARNING Envir. Controls behavior
Learn in social context NO/Mechanistic
NO/BOTH Learning Theory
Social learning theory
HUMANISTIC People have ability to change lives & foster own develop. NO/Organismic Maslow Selfactualization
Theory
ETHOLOGICAL Human have adaptive mechanisms to survive periods stressed: predisposition for learning
NO...
... middle of paper ...
...bia-unrealistic fear of going to school
Separation Anxiety-excessive prolonged anxiety concerning separation
Social Phobia-fear of and/or avoidance of social separation
Childhood Depression Prolonged sense of friendlessness, inability to have fun, concentrate, fatigue. Heredity thought to be modest. Girls more subject then boys.
Behavior Therapy-therapeutic approach using principles of learning theory to encourage desired behavior or eliminate undesirable ones. Every time child puts toy away get reward
Emotional Regulation
Stressful events are apart of childhood but when stress becomes overwhelming, this can lead to psychological problems.
Coping With Stress
Resilient children weather adverse circumstances, function well despite challenges or threats, or bounce back from traumatic events
Good family relationships
Cognitive Functioning
What makes us who we are? Does the answer lie in our genes, our environment, or in the way we are raised? For years, there has been an on-going debate between nature and nurture. T.H. White, author of The Once and Future King, explores the debate through many of the book’s characters. The issue clearly appears in the relationship of Queen Morgause and her sons, the Orkney brothers. The debate caused people to pick a side, to pick nature over nurture, or nurture over nature. However, it does not have to be one or the other. Nature and nurture work together to determine who we are.
How does one person develop into the human that he or she is? Do his or her characteristics depend on the qualities he or she was born with? Or does his or her upbringing mold them into the person he or she becomes? The debate between nature and nurture is one that can be difficult to conclude and thus has been argued for centuries. Sheri S. Tepper explores this issue in her acclaimed novel The Gate to Women’s Country. The narrator of the work, Stavia, lives in a woman-dominated, post-apocalyptic country, where the women’s goal is to breed out the violent and murderous qualities that men are believed to possess. These women have an preconceived ideal people who are “CAPABLE of violence and ruthlessness, but very much in control of their tempers
The issue of whether or not criminal or aggressive behavior and violence is caused by biological or environmental factors has proven to be one that has caused a dispute for many years now. The biological or genetic factor of violent/criminal or aggressive behavior is certainly a much talked about topic. The idea that certain individuals could be predisposed to violence is something definitely deserving of doing research about. The nature vs. nurture topic has been a continuing debate for many aspects of human behavior, including aggression/violent behavior and criminal behavior. There have been many studies indicating that chemical relationships between hormones and the frontal lobe of the brain may play a key role in determining aggressive behavior as well as genetics, while other studies have explored environmental and social factors that have been said to control patterns in human aggression. Aggressive/violent behavior can’t be answered directly if it is caused by either nature or nurture; instead it is believed that both cause it.
In the well-received novel “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Mark Twain skillfully addresses the ancient argument about the origin of one’s character and whether it’s derived from his nature or his surroundings. We can best see this battle between nature versus nurture by inspecting the plot lines that follow the characters Thomas a Becket Driscoll, Valet de Chambre, and Roxana the slave. Thomas was born into a wealthy white family while Roxy birthed Chambers into a life of slavery. It seemed as though each would have gone their separate ways into opposite walks of life, but Roxy secretly swapped the children, which destined each to their counterintuitive fates. Through their words and actions, Tom, Chambers, and Roxy have proven the idea that one’s behaviors and desires are a result of his upbringings and the environment he lives in rather than by his innate nature.
For this first analytical essay, I have decided to have a go at analyzing the Nature Vs. Nurture using my own viewpoint as a sibling. No doubt this is a topic that has been debated to mental death already, but I think it is something I will benefit from thinking about. Also, at the end of my main topic, I will quickly address a topic brushed on in the book.
When a person experiences something traumatic it can cause so much stress that even afterwards that
The quote from the famous psychologist John B. Watson essentially sums up behaviourism. Behaviourism refers to the school of psychology founded by Watson, established on the fact that behaviours can be measured and observed (Watson, 1993). In behaviourism, there is a strong emphasis that the acquisition of learning, or permanent change in behaviour, is by external manifestation. Thus, any individual differences in behaviours observed was more likely due to experiences, and not by the working of genes. As the quote suggest, any individuals can be potentially trained to perform any tasks through the right conditioning. There are two major types of conditioning, classical and operant conditioning (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2012).
Teenagers and young adults with past experiences of trauma may not be able to handle stress in their later years, this is due to the fact that many of them may not have developed the necessary skills required to manage stress. This inability may lead to the adoption of potentially negative traits as a way of dealing with anxiety. However these behaviors may become destructive and disruptive not only in their personal lives, but also in their interactions in society.
The argument of nature vs. nurture is a long-standing one in the psychological and social worlds. It is the argument about whether we are ruled by our genes or our upbringing. It is my thought that neither is true. It is nature working with nurture which determines our personality and our lifestyle.
The nature versus nurture debate is an old issue within the field of psychology. “The nature-nurture issue is a perennial one that has resurfaced in current psychiatry as a series of debates on the role that genes (DNA) and environments play in the etiology and pathophysiology of mental disorders” (Schaffner) The debate is essentially about what is inherited (nature) and what is experienced by environmental factors (nurture) and how they affect human development. Naturally, the nature versus nurture debate relates to many controversies such as intelligence, gender identities, violent behaviors, and sexual orientation. There are countless studies on whether intelligence is an inherited trait or if it is influenced by environmental factors.
Stress may play a causal role in a wide variety of mental disorders. Some of the mental disorders in which stress appears to have a causal role are anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and substance-related disorders.
The distinction between nature versus nurture or even environment versus heredity leads to the question of: does the direct environment or the nature surrounding an adolescent directly influence acts of delinquency, later progressing further into more radical crimes such as murder or psychotic manifestation, or is it directly linked to the hereditary traits and genes passed down from that individual adolescent’s biological parents? To answer this question one must first understand the difference between nature, nurture, environment, and heredity. Nurture, broken down further into environment, is defined as various external or environmental factors one is exposed to which can be more specifically broken down into social and physical aspects. Nature, itself broken down into heredity, is defined as the genetics and the individual characteristics in one’s personality or even human nature.
A given social environment may change extensively in the lifetime of an individual. The effect of social environment upon the behavior of the individual maybe inferred point for point from an analysis of that environment.
In the study of child development, nature and nurture are two essential concepts that immensely influence future abilities and characteristics of developing children. Nature refers to the genetically obtained characteristics and abilities that influence development while nurture refers to the surrounding environmental conditions that influence development. Without one or the other, a child may not develop some important skills, such as communication and walking. The roles of physiological and psychological needs in a person’s life are also crucial for developing children. Humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow, suggested that humans don’t only aim towards survival, but also aim towards self-actualization (Rathus, P. 94).
Developmental Psychology is an area which studies how we as humans change over the period of our life span. The majority of the focus is broken into three categories: cognitive, physical and social change. The creation of who we are today comes down to the everlasting debate of nature versus nurture. This ongoing debate of what makes us who we are and which one is the driving force in development may be so simple that it’s complex. Rather than it being a conflict of nature “versus” nurture, it is very well possible both play an equal part in the development of us as humans. In the beginning, we start off as single cell in the form of a zygote. In that moment, where the DNA begin to form and the first seconds of life take place, the zygote is already experiencing interaction with the womb. In the process of determining why we are who are it is better to look more at the interactions of nature and nurture, analyzing how both have shaped us.