The nature vs nurture debate attempts to answer psychology’s toughest question: how do humans develop? All the theories that attempt to answer this question fall under one of three overarching paradigms, which in turn, lead to models of development, First, people explain our development solely on biology (interchangeable with nature perspective), which assume that our course of development is dependent on our genes. Oppositely, ‘nurture’ models attempt to explain our development as a factor of our environment. The third view, the interactionist models, explain our development as a function of a complex interaction between our biology and environment, and adds that we as individuals have the ability to control our own development.
These opposing theories have sparked a tremendous amount of research, which lead to interesting models of development For example, the organismic model, which is a nature-oriented model, proposes that our course of development is programmed by our heredity material. The mechanistic model which if affiliated with the nurture perspective, assumes that we are all born as \blank slate‘ (similar to a machine), and that factors in our environment shape our course of development. However, as discussed in the lecture and in the book, there is an agreement in the scientific community that both \ forces are working together, In my opinion, the interactionist model, which incorporates both ‘forces‘, is by far the most interesting.
Not only does this view accepts the interaction between genetics and the environment, it goes a step beyond by stating that humans can shape their environment. This led to the ‘plasticity‘ principle which is the idea that the course of development can be changed, due to the specific interaction of the genetics and environment of the individual. In short, we can see that the interactionist model is by far superior to the other two views, this is also the general consensus in the scientific community. Therefore, we cannot say that neither force (nature or nurture) dominates the other rather they are equally important.
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Finally, a student taking this class should be aware of this debate, because these two overarching approaches led to many theories and explanations of our development in adulthood Nature theories tend to explain our aging on the basis of biological factors, such as changes in DNA and molecules. Whereas, nurture approaches explain our course of development with respect to the environment I think what is great about being a human, is that we have control over our development. This is also aligned with psychosocial models of development, such as Erikson‘s, Piaget‘s model and many more. Yes, there are some limitations 7 one can not decide if he or she will get cancer (although can decrease the chances!)
But what is unique about us , is that we recognize that as we develop we have tendencies, biases or certain behavior that we do like and some that we do not, and we can act and change them. We can recognize that our parents (a huge environmental factor in early ages) raised up in certain ways that affected our development, and we go, if we do not like the impact these factors had on us, we can change As I mentioned before, if our genes predispose us to certain diseases, in the near future we will be able to accurately predict these dispositions and potentially lower the chances by staying healthy To sum, yes, we are a bound by our genetics and to some extent our environment, but we humans have to power to change our course of development.
