Nature VS nurture †Issues, perspectives and debates in psychology Essay

NATURE refers to our innate potential that is influenced entirely by physiological and catching factors. NURTURE refers to the influence of the environment into & all the learning experiences we have after we are born. The nature- advance debate has been heatedly debated in psychology. At the fall outset of psychological search the nature-nurture debate was a point of argument between lookers from the behaviourist tradition and other processiones. More recently it has divided researches with regard to social and racial differences in intelligence.Nowadays its hard to believe that something as complex as human behaviour crumb be completely explained by either side of the argument, its more likely to be a convergence of both, as suggested by the Psychologist Robert Plomin. He would like to see the nature-nurture debate end as he severalises most human behaviours are not influenced by nature or nurture but by nature and nurture. He makes the point that twin and adoption studi es have provided evidence for the fact that there is a hereditary component to personality, intelligence and general behavioural disorders such as Schizophrenia and Autism.However the genetic influence on these traits and behaviour is only partial, genetic science account for on average half of the variation of most traits therefore the environment must account for the rest according to Plomin. This means that they are interdependent. An approach that belongs on the interdependent side of the argument is the cognitive-develop psychical approach. A key speculation of this approach is that development occurs done the twin processes of nature and nurture.Piaget believed that electric razorren were innately curious and programmed to learn (nature) but they needed the right sort of stimulation and environment to be able to do this adequately (nurture). However a condemnation to this approach is that Piaget underestimated childrens abilities, this produces a difficulty in his theor ies and suggests that children are not the way he envisioned them. This could indicate that they are not innately curious and even if provided with the right environment, dont learn.This can be compared to the careen Approach a criticism with this approach is that it doesnt consider the effect of nature, similar to a criticism of the physiological approach, which doesnt consider the effect of nurture. If the theories are proved false its tempting to say that that indicates nature and nurture have no effect individually, but must work together. An approach that believes that nurture is entirely amenable for our behaviour is the learning approach. The learning approach presents the assumption that all behaviour is learnt, by dint of interactions with the environment, and at birth we are a blank slate ready to develop.Evidence for this comes from Watsons bailiwick of little Albert. Albert was an 11-month-old baby when the study began Albert was presented with a dust coat rat, to w hich he responded with curiosity. After several sessions the presentation of the livid rat was accompanied with a loud noise to which Albert responded with fear. After several sessions Albert displayed fear as curtly as the rat was presented even without hearing the loud noise. This showed Albert had learnt to associate the rat with a loud noise, which he was frightened of. Albert generalised this fear with other things similar to the rat such as a white rabbit and a white beard.Albert had learnt this behaviour. So according to the learning approach it therefore follows that nurture is solo responsible for human development. Watsons study was On the other hand is the physiological approach. This approach presents the assumption that genetics are responsible for human behaviour. For spokesperson research into genetics has shown there to be genes responsible for certain type of behaviour and characteristics for example tongue rolling and eye colour, and more controversially resear ch has been carried out to find a gene responsible for homosexuality and criminality.Evidence to support this theory comes from research into Schizophrenia. This research has shown there to be an excess of dopamine in the brains of schizophrenics. Schizophrenia has been shown to run in families, 10 out of every 100 children who have one biological parent with dementia praecox go on to develop schizophrenia whereas only 1 or 2 in every 100 in the general population develop schizophrenia. Twin studies on monozygotic (identical twins) have also indicated that genetics are responsible for schizophrenia, as if one twin is schizophrenic there is between a 35 and 58% chance of the other twin also developing schizophrenia.Of course this is only a correlation and this affinity could be caused by another variable. Twin studies are hard to conduct because the necessary situation doesnt occur particularly a great deal in the population, therefore the archetype is limited and difficult to ge neralise. This affects the reliability and rigourousness of the results. The idea of the causes of schizophrenia is explored further in clinical psychology. Schizophrenia is the most commonly diagnosed form of mental illness 1% of the whole population volition be diagnosed at some point in their lives has having schizophrenia.Schizophrenia doesnt seem to have one single cause but is rather the product of a relationship between biology, psychology and culture. Which suggests both nature and nurture play a quality in the development of schizophrenia. As I said earlier twin, adoption and family studies give the clearest indication that genetics play a role in the development of schizophrenia. 10% of children with a schizophrenia parent will go on to develop the disease. This however, because its only a correlation, could be caused by another factor, for example the environment.Studies have been carried out using twins to find out the concordance rate of schizophrenia in twins. The i ncreased risk of developing schizophrenia could be the result of difficulties that have arisen during the rearing of a child by a parent with such a disorganised personality. However adoption studies have been carried out which also suggest that genetics are responsible for schizophrenia. Heston (1966) compared the adopted children of 77 schizophrenic mothers with the adopted children of 50 normal mothers and found the former to be 5 times more likely to be admitted to hospital with schizophrenia.This study also shows that those children of schizophrenic parents were more likely to go on and be diagnosed as psychopaths, behaviourally garbled or neurotic. The study by Heston rules out the possibility that the experience of being adopted leads to the development of schizophrenia as the control group didnt go on to develop higher levels of schizophrenia. However the sample isnt large so is difficult to generalise and this type of situation doesnt occur frequently so it is hard to do this type of investigation.