Environmentalist would later argue that the environment in which one is brought up had a much larger role in shaping the mind; these two contrasting views have set the stage for this much argued debate. More recently, nature-nurture, research has been aimed at answering “how much” of our genes or environment have an effect on specific traits and behavior, such as intelligence, and which of these two elemental factors is more important on the development of such traits. Much insight into the debate of nature-nurture is afforded to the research and data obtained through twin, adoption and family studies; with identical twin studies being the most valuable. I have chosen two studies to compare and contrast over the debate of nature-nurture. The first is a longitudinal adoption study; Nature, Nurture, and Cognitive Development from 1 to 16 years: A Parent-Offspring Adoption Study (1).
The nature-nurture debate is all about whether genetics (nature) or our environment (nurture) is responsible for our behaviour and development. Early theorists believed that our personality, intellect, behaviour and gender role were determined by our genes and therefore could not be changed. But an increasing amount of evidence has proved these theorists wrong, and our development as an individual is learnt through the environment we live in. One developmental stage of an individual that psychologists have the nature-nurture debate about is the intelligence stage. The nature side of that intelligence is present at birth and we already have a set amount of intelligence.
Whereas other theorists have argued that is is the way we are brought up and influenced by our surroundings that makes an individual the way they are. Nature means the genetic and biological influences that affect our growth and development. The nature side of the debate believes that it is inherited factors which have more impact on your life and development. For example, the colour or type of your hair, your eye colour, the pigmentation of your skin, and also genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis are all the result of the genes we inherit. These biological factors are said to determine an individual’s development and characteristics .
The evolutionary approach argues that gender role division is a consequence of the adaptation to the challenges and circumstances faced by our ancestors. This suggests that the role differences we observe are more a product of our biological inheritance and evolution than social factors acting on our behavior. As evolutionary theory is a biological approach to gender development, it suggests that our genes have coded aspects of human behavior because they were or are adaptive. However a debate to this approach is the nature vs. nurture approach, nature supporting the evolutionary approach being that we have evolved through survival and adaptation to the situations and therefore passing on the adaptive genes of the survivors. Nurture on the other hand is a view, is a view proposed by the social approach suggesting that behavior is affected by socialization and environment.
They argue that our behavioural aspects originate only from the environmental factors of our upbringing. From my personal point of view, one theory cannot simply be used to explain human behaviour, because there are various factors that affect the way a human thinks, speaks, moves and generally acts. It would take a lot of research to prove that simply DNA is what makes our personalities the way they are. The truth of the matter is that it is a combination of both genetics and the environment we surround ourselves in that help define us as beings. For example, a murderer being studied at a local prison could have a psychological disorder, which causes them to interpret the world around them differently, but it also be because of an genetically inherited disease that runs in the family.
Environmental Determinism And Environmental Probabilism, Is The Environment Really Influencing Human society? The fundamental of environmental determinism based on to emphasized the role of physical geography, particularly about climate, and how this physical environment in structuring human activities. There are two determinisms that I am going to discuss. The first one is called “Biological determinism”, this determinism is emphasized on the claims that behaviors is the result of internal factors, which means we human have no control about it. For example, these include genetic make-up; biological needs and evolutionary pressures.
Socio- biologists argue that biology, meaning our genetic make up; shapes the behavior of the individual and in turn also determines social in-equalities such as gender inequalities present in society. Socio- biologists believe that the sex a person is born, categorizes them into the way society will perceive and treat them, this theory is known as biological determinism(O’ Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2006). Socio- constructionists believe however that ‘gender is a social distinction between men and women (Germov & Poole, 2007) and you are not born a woman or a man but rather female or male and develop into either a woman or a man due to society and its structures .Social ideologies such as gender hierarchy, culture, order and institutions are said to contribute to gender inequality, not the sex of the person as thought by socio-biologists. Prior to the feminist movement in Australia in the 1970’s, the word ‘gender’ did not exist; there was very much a socio-biologists view present in society at this time. This meant there was great masses of gender inequality present in Australia, males and females role’s in society were given to them based on a whole range of other differences: ‘bodily strength and speed, physical skills (men have mechanical skills and women are good at homemaking work i.e.
Heredity and Hormones Influence on Human Behavior Debates on nature versus nurture are more likely to determine that genetics are the cause for human behavior. More and more researchers pay attention on genes and behavior, therefore, their tendency to follow a line of investigation on the influence of heredity on human behavior increases the belief that genetics is a major issue which influences physical behaviors. However, the only fact of connection between genetics and behavior seems to be too simple to describe the complex process of human behavior. The factor of hormones’ influence on behavior is also identified which debates the reality of it being controlled exclusively by genetics. The endocrine system is very active and is connected to most of the other main systems of the body.
Traditionally, EJ originates from the sociological issues, such as the ethnic discrimination of local communities and specific ethnic groups2; however, from Latin America’s perspective3, EJ refers to economic issues, such as criticism against the “Capitalistic-dominated” development model. To some extent, the Latin America’s perspective refers the root of Environmental Injustice. In developing country, economic considerations will indirectly generate the environmental problem, when different groups only care about the economic merit, but ignore the consequence of environmental damage after exploitation. In this article, part I will explain that Economic Development is the root of environmental injustice in Developing Country. Part II is going to talk about the obstacles in pursuing environmental justice and finally, How to promote environmental justice will be illustrated in Part III.
According to Bernstein (2011) nurture refers to all environmental influence, after the birth of a child that affects development. Hence nurture can be called post natal factors that influence development of people. Lahey (2009) purports that genes and environment work together in a complex way to influence the psychological characteristics of children in what is known as gene environment correlation. Intelligence is an example of the relationship between genes and environment. Feldman (2009) believes that heredity defines people’s general level of intelligence setting an upper limit that regardless of the quality of environment, people cannot exceed.