Hi all, This is powerpoint presentation of nature versus nurture debate.

1. Nature vs Nurture
Dr. D Raj kiran
Senior Resident
Dept of Psychiatry
KIMSRF

2. Learning objectives
 Nature versus Nurture controversy
 Sheldon’s body types
 Blood types and personality
 Delusions

3. Charles Darwin
“Through naturalselection,organismspassontheirgenesto
subsequentgenerations,certainabilitiesbecome inbuiltintothe
geneticcode. Somanyabilitiesthatdevelop inhumansare
biologicallybasedratherthanpurelyproducts oflearning”.

4. John B Watson
“Givemeadozen healthyinfants,wellformed, andmyownspecified
worldtobringthemupin,andI’llguaranteetotakeanyoneat
randomandtrainhimtobeanytypeofspecialistImightselect-
doctor, lawyer,artist,merchant-chief,and,yesevenbeggar-man
andthief,regardless ofhistalents,penchants,tendencies,abilities,
vocations,andraceofhisancestors”.

5. Nature
 Behaviour is caused by innate characteristics:
Physiological/ Biological characteristics.
 All behaviours are present from conception.
 Genes provide the blueprint for all behaviours; some
present from birth, others pre-programmed to emerge
with age.
 Is a developmental approach.

6. Nurture
 Behaviour is determined by the environment- the things
people teach, things they observe.
 Behaviour is the result of interactions with environment.
 Born an empty vessel- waiting to be filled up by
experiences gained from environmental interaction.
 Can become anything provided the environment is right.
 Behaviourist theories are nurture theories.

7. Nature vs Nurture
 Degree to which human behaviour is determined by
genetics/ biology or learned through interacting with
the environment.

8. Who created?
 Initial use of the Nature vs. Nurture Theory was
credited to psychologist Sir Francis Galton.
 Hippocrates described human behaviors as being
biological, the result of four different body fluid types
called humors.
 Blood
 Yellow bile
 Black bile
 Phlegm

9.  Later, Philosophers thought that people are born as
blank slates (i.e. “Tabula Rasa"), and that eventual
individual differences develop solely due to the result
of environmental influences.
 20th century psychologist John Watson shared a
similar perspective, events that take place during early
childhood have more influence on what kind of adults
we become compared to the effects of our genes.

10. Support for Nature
 Piaget- Children’s thought processes change at
predetermined age-related stages.
 Freud's theory of aggression
 Innate drive (called Thanatos). (Eros- pleasure drive)

11.  Language Acquisition- Chomsky maintained language
is the result of innate cognitive structures in the mind.
 Children are predisposed to make sounds and
understand grammar.
 Does not happen from birth but language skills develop
rapidly after a certain period of time.
 Language acquisition follows the same sequence in all
children, an inbuilt genetic mechanism is responsible.

12.  Genetic basis of Schizophrenia-
 Adoption studies: compared biological parents and siblings
and adoptive parents and siblings.
 Increased incidence in adopted children with a schizophrenic
biological parent.
 Twin studies: compared identical and non-identical twins.
 Higher rate for schizophrenia in identical (58%) than non
identical twins (12%).
 Conclusion Significant genetic input into the onset of
schizophrenia.

13. Support for Nurture
 Little Albert-
 Classical conditioning of fear- phobia acquisition.
 Provides evidence that the environment can be
manipulated to create a phobic response & behavioural
change.
 Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment
 24 participants - Randomly assigned to the role of
‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’.
 The behaviour of the ‘normal’ students was affected by
the assigned role- seemed to believe in their allocated
position.

14.  Bandura’s social learning theory-
 Aggression is a learned from the environment through
observation and imitation.
 Bobo doll experiment.
 Skinner-
 Believed that language is learnt from other people via
behavior shaping techniques.

15. Nature-Nurture interaction
 Behaviour is often a result of interaction between nature
and nurture.
 An individuals characteristics may elicit particular
responses in other people
 Temperament- how active, responsive or emotional an
infant is influenced in part determines their caregiver’s
responses.
 Gender: people tend to react differently to boys and girls
due to expectations of masculine and feminine
characteristics.

16.  Rutter and Rutter (1993) Aggression hostility –
 Described how aggressive children think and behave in
ways that lead other children to respond to them in a
hostile manner.
 This then reinforces the antisocial child’s view of the
world.
 Thus, aggressive children tend to experience aggressive
environments partly because they elicit aggressive
responses.

17.  Maguire et al. (2000)- Taxi driver study
 Structural MRI scans of the brains of London taxi drivers
compared with controls who did not drive taxis.
 Hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time
spent as a taxi driver
 Posterior hippocampi of taxi drivers were significantly larger
relative to those of control subjects.
 It stores spatial representation of the environment and can
expand regionally in people with a high dependence on
navigational skills.

18. Applications
 Nature:
 Drug therapies can be developed to treat behavioural or
psychological problems that have a physiological origin
 Eg: SSRI’s can be used to treat depression
 Nurture:
 If behaviour is susceptible to environmental influences
we can consider to adapt our environment
 Eg: promote helping behaviour, enhance learning,
reduce aggression, decrease criminality etc.

19. Thank you