Critique of Infant Determinism Do experiences during early years solely determine later development? In the second chapter of his book "Three Seductive Ideas" (1998), Kagan questions the overemphasis on the first two years of an individual's life. While not doubting its importance, Kagan suggests that perhaps more crucial to human development is the construction of experience, perception, and comparison of ourselves to others which begins during the fifth or sixth year of life. His argument is a valid one, regarding the fact that infant determinism overrates the importance of first two years in a person’s whole lifetime. As Kagan argues, infant determinism is rather a political theory that conceals the effect of social class on development …show more content…
Kagan points out, “Those who favor infant determinism do not award sufficient power to the events of the later childhood and adolescence, many of which are correlated to social class” (Kagan, 1998, p.147). Although the foundation of today’s society is based on the idea of everybody being equal, differences in social class and socioeconomic status are inevitable. All men being equal only exist in theory: in the real social structure there exists lower working class, middle class, and upper class. A person’s perception and development is largely influenced by the experience that comes from this social structure. People living in poverty are more likely to experience greater amount of hardships and less amount of education than others do, and these conditions tend to continue. Kagan emphasizes the impact of this “continuity” on one’s life: he says the reason for high rate of adult morbidity in lower class, for example, is because of the continuity of the poor living condition over the many years (Kagan, 1998, p.128). However, discussing the existing inequality between social classes is such a sensitive issue. It is hard to relate all the unpleasant outcomes to the differences in behavior in social classes when everyone is supposed to be equal and well. Therefore, if there are differences between children of upper class and lower class, blaming the past is easier than blaming the social class itself. Kagan argues, “Though a child’s social class is the best predictor of future vocation, academic accomplishments, and psychiatric
The social developments allow the family to have a base of self-esteem with confidence and create stronger relationship bonds with others. Also infants can be shy to talk to other people such as strangers they haven’t seen
...an infant is living in, and how he or she would get treat in the first three years, would get effect on his or her behavior. “ Babies’ brains are searching for clues about the world that they are entering, trying to predict what settings will best adapt them to the life ahead” (Patty 127). When the baby does not see any care, any kind of emotion in its life, they would grow up as an unemotional person, because the person’s brain did not process the steps of learning empathy in its life. “A baby is born with just one suite of genes. If they can produce only one pattern of responses, that pattern could turn out to be fatally maladaptive” (Patty 128). The baby is capable of learning whatever the environment is giving him to learn. Children may seem they don’t understand everything that goes around him or her, but it’s from that children will understand how to behave.
“Although experience may affect human brain structure and function throughout the entire life span, evidence…..suggests that early experience may be particularly critical” (Rao et al., 2010). During the childhood years, adequate nurturance by parents has a large impact on optimal biological and psychological development. This includes neurological, social, emotional, and cognitive growth. Rao et al. (2010) broadly define nurturance as including “warmth, affection, and acceptance” (p. 1145). Like nurturance, many researchers have looked at the importance of similar issues such as attention, attachment, and bonding. Conversely, issues such as stressful environments and unstable relationships have been shown to have negative consequences on childhood development. The importance of this early childhood nurturance is evident in the story of Michel Oher as described in the movie The Blind Side. Due to his neglectful upbringing, Michael has many academic deficits including language problems as well as having limited social and stress management skills. However, when taken in by the Tuohy family Michael begins to thrive and flourish due to the encouraging attention he receives and the positive environment in which he now lives. Although Michael’s case is atypical, not every impoverished child gets a second chance, it does illustrate the effects that improper, and later adequate, nurturance has on a child and his or her development.
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.
Both Erik Erikson’s (1963) theory and Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby (1973) theory support the idea that early life experiences impact the person across their lifespan. Both theories believe that personality begins to develop from a young age and therefore occurrences in early life can have lasting impacts on the developmental of an individual. An individual’s social and psychological development is significantly influenced by early life and childhood experiences. The experiences an individual has as a child impacts on the development of social skills, social behaviours, morals and values of an individual.
This piece shall begin by briefly outlining biological determinism and sociology as a whole. it shall then continue by analyzing and assessing sociology strong argument against biological determinism by means of picking apart sections of nature and nurture debate/ furthermore the piece shall elaborate on biological determinism and its argument against sociology. finally, this essay will reflect upon the statement 'sociology has mounted a powerful attack on biological determinism' in relation to the topics discussed previously.
The child has not been perceived like an individual until the work of eighteen century philosophers Locke and Rousseau, who expressed their thoughts on paper about the child's ability to interact with the surrounding world (Cunningham, 1993). The research on child development has commenced followed by the observational work of changing behaviours in organisms by Charles Darwin.
The French documentary Babies shows the first year of development of four different babies who live in four completely different environments. The film follows Ponijao, a little girl from Namibia, Bayar, a little boy from Mongolia, Mari, a girl from Tokyo, and Hattie, a girl from San Francisco. Even though the babies live in very dissimilar parts of the world, their physical, cognitive, and social development seem to all follow a set pattern. On the other hand, the babies learn to do some activities distinctive to their environment by watching their parents and siblings. Therefore, Babies provides evidence to support both the nature and nurture sides of the debate.
In her work on childhood development, The Invisible Heart, Nancy Folbre writes that, "The child's personality evolves as a composite of all things social...but a child's character is based entirely on the home." Later she elaborates by adding, "The first four years of a child's development are more crucial then her next fifty; no school curriculum can correct the patterns of thought that develop during infancy"(119). The practices and beliefs of the family are critical since the first six years of a child's development are spent almost entirely within the house, where family ties form the boundaries of the child's socialization. With the outside world completely unknown, the baby relies solely on its family to learn how to
Berger, K. S. (1980). 4: Prenatal Development and Birth. The developing person (pp. 93-121). New York, N.Y.: Worth Publishers.
...as an individual, still finding a sense of closeness with their caregiver. The perceptions that are formed as an infant are progressively construed to structure who we are, what we do, and why we do the things we do. These long-term effects appear to grow and are constructive as internal working models which shape our behavior, self perception, sense of self, and our expectations of other people.
The first two years of a infants development is crucial. They are dependent on their caregivers to provide them with enough nutrition, nurturing, attention, love, and experiences to not only learn about their surrounding world but how to interact with it. Without these experiences a babies brain isn’t given the chance to grow and develop the way that is was designed to. Unfortunately in many circumstances if these experiences don’t happen early on children suffer
A child is considered an infant from the age of 2 to 12 months. From 12 months to 36 months this is considered the toddler years where the cognitive, emotional, and social development is great. The social emotional development occurs during early childhood where children experience different moods as well as expanding their social world by learning more about their emotions and other people. The social emotional development is a child's way of understanding the feelings of others, controlling their own feelings and behaviors and getting along with peers. The key to a successful emotional and social development are positive relationship with trusting and caring adults. The social and emotional development in infants and toddlers can have negative
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.
In conclusion we can safely say that Erikson's psychosocial stages of human development made various contributions to the study of human development. The theory offers a useful framework for analyzing developmental histories. The theory helps create interest and research on human development through the lifespan. It also assists care givers to adopt the correct parenting styles that can yield positive results. Critics of Erikson's theory say that his theory is more applicable to boys than to girls, and that more attention is paid to infancy and childhood than to adult life, despite the claim to be a life-span theory. Critics also say that single words can be misleading and rarely convey much meaning whilst others say that the universality of his theory can and must be questioned.