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Nature vs nurture psychology summary
How nurture outweighs nature psychology
Nature vs nurture psychology summary
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Nature verses Nurture are both concepts of what makes us who we are today. Nature is described as our physical attributes and genes from when we are born. Our genetics that make us who we are include our eye colour, height and hair colour, as well as our natural talents, abilities and our intelligence level. Nurture refers to our physical and social worlds that influence our childhood with our surroundings and our environment we were brought up in from birth An example of both these is my mother who is a single parent. She was stereotyped from the beginning, being a single parent back than meant her children would be raised in an unfair and disadvantaged environment and wouldn’t have the support we needed to grow which turns out was completely untrue. With our physical attributes I was given the short genes my brother the tall genes, both of us have blue eyes and brown hairs. With regards to our environment thought we grew up in a normal surrounding nothing different from a two parent family. The only difference was I believe we were closer as a family, more open to each other’s views, yes mum worked two jobs but at the same time we spent a lot of time together as much as any family would. Now at the age of 25 and 23 my brother is applying for the police force and I am here studying what I’ve always wanted to do. A lot of theorists are stuck in the middle of the nature verses nurture. Some believe it’s a biological factor ultimately responsible for human growth. Others believe that children become whatever the environment shapes them to be. We could have everything we wanted regarding our height, hair colour and intelligence level but at the same time it does depend on our surroundings and what environment we grew up in t... ... middle of paper ... ...e developed from start to finish with no backtracking. He concentrated on the Western society and culture; he failed to consider the effects on other societies and cultures relating to the cognitive development. People also criticised him and said he pays little attention to emotional factors and gives children little credit for their abilities. Strength – Piaget believes children may pass through stages at different ages but some children may show characterises of more than one stage at any given time. He also believes you cannot skip each stage as it is marked by new abilities. a) Oral Sensory (0-1years) b) Muscular anal (2-3years) c) Locomoto-genital (3-5years) d) Latency (6 – Puberty) e) Adolescence (12-18 years) f) Early Adulthood (18-35 years) g) Middle Adulthood (35-60 years) h) Mature Adult (60 + years) I am at Early Adulthood stage because I am 25, but
In the book Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain, race and identity is a large theme in the book, that often impacts the each and every word, thought and action of the characters. The nature vs nurture theme speaks volumes because most whites in the time period of racism believed that whites were noble and blacks were innately evil from birth and can never be changed. In the book there are two boys named Tom, the son of Roxy, and Chambers, the son of Percy Driscoll. Roxy had a gut feeling of her son being separated from her son by Percy so she switches the sons since they look so much alike. Chambers a black person with a upbringing of respectable white background grows up to be “racist” and Tom a white person with a black surrounding thinks nothing of being black. Mark Twain mocks white people because Roxy, a black female, was outsmarting a whole town without anyone noticing for years. Mark Twain dispels the reasons whites or society gives to hate blacks, Twain does through the character of Chambers as well as Tom and societies depictions of them. Society has nurtured the hate people have for blacks for no valid reason and it is shown to the reader, through Chambers. In the book Chambers hates blacks, reason being is that he thought he was white, and society says whites are suppose to hate blacks, so why is that Chambers
The discussion as to whether nature or nurture were the driving force shaping our cognitive abilities, was for a long time considered interminable. In the 18th century, Locke and the English empiricists claimed that individuals were born with a tabula rasa and only experience could establish mind, consciousness and the self. On the continent, Leibniz envisaged the self as a monad carrying with it some knowledge of a basic understanding of the world. Until the 1960s, this dispute was still very vivid in the behavioral sciences: B. F. Skinner's school of behaviorism in the USA postulated (as reflexology did earlier) general rules for all types of learning, neglecting innate differences or predispositions. K. Lorenz was one of the protagonists of ethology in Europe, focusing on the inherited aspects of behavior. It was Lorenz who ended the antagonistic view of behavior in showing that there indeed are innate differences and predispositions in behavior where only little learning occurs. Today, it is largely agreed upon that nature and nurture are intimately cooperating to bring about adaptive behaviors. Probably only in very few cases ontogenetic programs are not subjected to behavioral plasticity at all. Conversely, the possibility to acquire behavioral traits has to be genetically coded for.
Scientists make a good point about genes but I believe physical aspects come through genetics, but that personality development is shaped based solely on how a person has been nurtured through their lives. All children are bad at one time in their lives; consider this, a 4 year old girl throws a book at her brother, and is punished she is put in the corner.
“The term “nature versus nurture” is used to refer to a long-running scientific debate. The source of debate is the question of which has a greater influence on development: someone's innate characteristics provided by genetics, or someone's environment. In fact, the nature versus nurture debate has been largely termed obsolete by many researchers, because both innate characteristics and environment play a huge role in development, and they often intersect”. (Smith, 2010 p. 1)
and behavior of the child. In fact, the more we understand about development and behavior, the better. the more obvious it becomes that nature and nurture are similarly influences. rather than determinants, not only singly but also in combination. Here below, I will endeavour to expose the leading theories dealing with the question of nature.
Noted psychologist Jerome Kagan once said "Genes and family may determine the foundation of the house, but time and place determine its form" (Moore 165). The debate on nature versus nurture has been a mystery for years, constantly begging the question of whether human behavior, ideas, and feelings are innate or learned over time. Nature, or genetic influences, are formed before birth and finely-tuned through early experiences. Genes are viewed as long and complicated chains that are present throughout life and develop over time. Nature supporters believe that genes form a child's conscience and determine one's approach to life, contrasting with nature is the idea that children are born “blank slates,” only to be formed by experience, or nurture. Nurture is constituted of the influence of millions of complex environmental factors that form a child's character. Advocators of nature do not believe that character is predetermined by genes, but formed over time. Although often separated, nature and nurture work together in human development. The human conscience is neither innate from birth or entirely shaped through experience, instead, genetics and environmental influences combine to form human behaviorism, character, and personality traits that constantly change and develop throughout life.
I believe that a child’s growth is developmental, and each child needs a secure caring and motivating atmosphere in which to grow and developed emotionally, intellectually, physically, and socially. I believe nature and nurture are the two aspects that influence in child development. Nature and nurture are different in several ways, but they both play an important role in child development. I believe that the environment that a person grows up in has the most influence on child development because children reflect what they are taught and what they learn from the people around them.
Firstly, in order to compresence the complexity of our debate, we have to take in mind the definition of nature and nurture. Yes, is true that some of our characteristics are inherited by our ancestors, most of our physical characteristics, such as hair color and type; the pigmentation of our skin, those are a product of our genes thus our DNA (Jewel, 2007).
Undoubtedly, humans are unique and intricate creatures and their development is a complex process. It is this process that leads people to question, is a child’s development influenced by genetics or their environment? This long debate has been at the forefront of psychology for countless decades now and is better known as “Nature versus Nurture”. The continuous controversy over whether or not children develop their psychological attributes based on genetics (nature) or the way in which they have been raised (nurture) has occupied the minds of psychologists for years. Through thorough reading of experiments, studies, and discussions however, it is easy to be convinced that nurture does play a far more important in the development of a human than nature.
Nature by itself can affect a child’s development. If the child is born with a disease or mental illness, they may develop at a slower pace. For example, if a child is born with Asperger’s syndrome, the child will have a difficult time with social skills and understanding emotions. Nurture deals with the environment. If a child was raised in a hostile environment, that child is more likely to be hostile when they get older. Environment may play a larger role in most cases due to everyday lifestyle, from the city you live in to the way you are raised. If one was raised in a healthy house hold, someone who lived in a toxic household may behave differently.
One of the hottest debates is and has been nature vs nurture for years, but what is the difference between the two? Nature is what people think of as already having and not being able to change it, in other words, pre-wiring (Sincero). Nurture is the influence of experiences and its environment of external factors (Sincero). Both nature and nurture play important roles in human development. Scientists and researchers are both trying to figure out which is the main cause in development because it is still unknown on which it is. The best position to side with is nature. Nature is also defined as genetic or hormone based behaviors (Agin). Regardless of the involvement in everyday life, or nurture, this argumentation centers around the effect genes have on human personalities. Although it is understandable on reasons to side with nurture, nature is the better stand in this controversy. Reasons to side with nature is because of genes and what genes hold. Genes is what
Let’s take the feral children for an example. There were two kids that we learned about and their names were Jeanie and Oxana. Oxana was living with dogs for pretty much her whole childhood. When they found Oxana they noticed she did pretty much everything like a dog. Jeanie was beaten by her father, and she was left alone until she was 13 years old. Jeanie’s father hated noise, so she barely ever talked or heard others talk. Once she was found, her behavior was like a 3 year olds. She had trouble walking and talking, in fact, she only knew a few words and could barely even stand. Both of these examples of the feral children are nurture because their personality’s have been based off their surroundings.
Nature vs nurture debate is one of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology. It is the scientific cultural, and philosophical debate about whether human culture, behavior, and personality are caused primarily by nature or nurture. Nature and nurture are both equally important. They are the two are major influences that affect the person you grow to be and will determine what your children will be tomorrow. Nature refers to heredity, which are traits and features that are inherited from your parents and ancestors. At birth you, as a person, inherits 50% of each parent 's genetic material that are passed along through the chromosomes found in the DNA. Hair color, height, body type, and eye color are some examples of characteristics
Child growth and development is a process that consists of some building blocks, which are components that combine in an infinite number of ways (Cherry, n.d.). As a result of the variations of building blocks in a child’s development, educators, psychologists, and philosophers have been constantly engaged in the debate of nature versus nurture debate. Many researchers agree that child development is a complex interaction between his/her genetic background (nature) and his/her environment (nurture). In essence, some developmental aspects are strongly affected by biology whereas other aspects are influenced by environmental factors. From the onset of an individu...
Throughout the history of human existence, there have always been questions that have plagued man for centuries. Some of these questions are “what is the meaning of life” and “which came first, the chicken or the egg”. Within the past 400 years a new question has surfaced which takes our minds to much further levels. The question asked is whether nature or nurture has more of an impact on the growing development of people. It is a fact that a combination of nature and nurture play important roles in how humans behave socially. However, I believe that nature has a more domineering role in the development of how people behave in society with regards to sexual orientation, crimes and violence and mental disorders.