MODULE 3

INTRODUCTION

Issues on Human Development

— Brenda B. Corpuz, PhD

The interaction of Heredity and environment is so extensive that to ask which is more important, nature
or nurture, is (like asking which is more important to a rectangle, height or width.
-'William QreenoughCty
INTRODUCTION
At the end of this Module, you should be able to take a research-based position on the three (3) issues on
development.

LEARNING OUTCOME
Each of us has his/her own informal way of looking at our own and other people’s development. These
paradigms of human development while obviously lacking in scholastic vigor, provide us with a conceptual
framework for understanding ourselves and others. Scholars have come up with their own models of
human development. Back up by solid research, they take stand on issues on human development.

ACTIVITY

(This is supposed to be assigned at least more than one week before the scheduled debate)
Small group Debate
Divide the class into 3 small groups. Let the groups choose their topic for debate. Here are the topics and
issues:
1. Nature versus Nurture - Which has a more significant influence on human development? Nature or
nurture? Nature refers to an individual’s biological inheritance. Nurture refers to environmental
experiences.

2. Continuity versus Discontinuity - Does development involve gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or
distinct changes (discontinuity). To make it more concrete, here is a question: Is our development like that
of a seedling gradually growing into an acacia tree? Or is it more like that of a caterpillar becoming a
butterfly?

3. Stability vs. Change - Is development best described as involving stability or as involving change? Are we
what our first experiences have made of us or do we develop into someone different from who we were
at an earlier point in development?

Report to the whole class what transpired in your small group debates.

ANALYSIS
After every small group presentation to the whole class, the teacher facilitates the whole class
discussion and asks the following:

1. Who are pro-nature? Pro-nurture? Are there additional reasons you can give in favor of
nature/nurture? Who are neither for nature nor nurture? Why?
2. Who go for continuity? Discontinuity? Can you give additional arguments to defend
continuity/discontinuity? Who are in between continuity and discontinuity? Why?
3. Who claims stability is more correct than change? Change is more correct than stability?

ABSTRACTION
The issues presented can be translated into questions that have sparked animated debate
among development a lists. Are girls less likely to do well in math because of their ‘feminine’
nature or because of society’s ‘masculine’ bias? How extensively can the elderly be trained to
reason more effectively? How much, if at all, does our memory decline in old age? Can
techniques be used to prevent or reduce the decline? For children who experienced a world of
poverty, neglect by parents, and poor schooling in childhood, can enriched experiences in
adolescence remove the ‘deficits’ that they encountered earlier in their development (Santrock,
2002)?
Based on the presentations, each one has his/her own explanations for his/her stand on
the developmental issues. What is the right answer? Up to this time, the debate continues.
Researches are on-going. But let me tell you that most life-span development a lists recognize
that extreme positions on these issues are unwise. Development is not all nature or all nurture,
not all continuity or discontinuity and not all stability or all change (Lerner, 1998 as quoted by
Santrock, 2002). Both nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity, stability and change
characterize our life-span development. The key to development is the interaction of nature
and nurture rather than either factor alone (Rutter, 2001 as quoted by Santrock, 2002). In other
words, it is a matter of “both- and” not “either-or.” Just go back to the quote beneath the title
of this lesson and the message gets crystal clear.

To summarize, both genes and environment are necessary for a person even to exist. Without
genes, there is no person; without environment, there is no person (Scarr and Weinberg, 1980,
quoted by Santrock, 2002). Heredity and environment operate together - or cooperate and
interact - to produce a person’s intelligence, temperament, height, weight... ability to read and
so on.

If heredity and environment interact, which one has a greater influence or contribution,
heredity or environment? The relative contributions of heredity and environment are not
additive. So we can’t say 50% is a contribution of heredity and 50% of environment. Neither is
it correct to say that full genetic expression happens once, around conception or birth, after
which we take our genetic legacy into the world to see how far it gets us. Genes produce proteins
throughout the life span, in many different environments. Or they don’t produce these proteins,
depending on how harsh or nourishing those environments are. (Santrock, 2002).

APPLICATION
Let’s find out where you can apply what you learned from a discussion of these developmental
issues.

1. Convinced of the interactive influence of heredity and environment on the development of

children, prepare for a power point presentation for parents to show them how crucial their role
is in the development of their children. Remember that heredity is already fixed. Their children
have been born and they have passed on these inherited traits at conception and that they
cannot do anything anymore to change them. So concentrate on how they can contribute to
their children’s favorable development by creating the environment conducive to development.
Like heredity, environment is complex. It includes nutrition as early as conception, parenting,
family dynamics, schooling, neighborhood quality and biological encounters such as viruses,
birth complications, and even biological events in cells.

Do not lose sight of the objective of your power point presentation. At the end of your power
point presentation, the parents should go home very much convinced of their role in the
development of their children and get very much inspired to do their part.

2. Do the same presentation (in # 1) to a class in General Psychology where they discuss the
nature-nurture debate or to a group of student teachers.
3. Discuss the implications of this statement: “The frightening part about heredity and
environment is that we, parents, provide both.”
4. Here is an interesting article titled “How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life”
from the October 4, 2010 Issue of Time Magazine. Read, analyze then answer the following
questions:
Does the article agree that heredity, environment and individual’s choice are the factors that
contribute to what a person may become? Read that paragraph that tells so.
Read the 4th paragraph again. Focus your attention on the highlighted word, PERMANENTLY.
Relate this to the issue on stability versus change issue on p. 46. Does the word PERMANENTLY
convince you that we are what our first experiences have made of us (stability)? Explain your
answer.

How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life
What makes us the way we are? Why are some people predisposed to be anxious,
overweight or asthmatic? How is it that some of us are prone to heart attacks, diabetes or high
blood pressure?
There’s a list of conventional answers to these questions. We are the way we are because
it’s in our genes. We turn out the way we do because of our childhood experiences. Or our health
and well-being stem from the lifestyle choices we make as adults.
But there’s another powerful source of influence you may not have considered, your lite
as a fetus. The nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs and infections you were
exposed to during gestation; your mother's health and state of mind while she was pregnant
with you - all these factors shaped you as a baby and continue to affect you to this day.
This is the provocative contention of a field known as fetal origins, whose pioneers assert
that the nine months of gestation constitute the most consequential period of our lives.
PERMANENTLY (Underscoring, mine) influencing the wiring of the brain and the functioning of
organs such as the heart, liver and pancreas. In the literature on the subject, which has exploded
over the past 10 years, you can find references to the fetal origins of cancer, cardiovascular
disease, allergies, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, mental illness. At the farthest edge
of fetal- origins research, scientists are exploring the possibility that intrauterine conditions
influence not only our physical health but also our intelligence, temperament, even our sanity.
As a journalist who covers science, I was intrigued when I first heard about fetal origins.
But two years ago, when I began to delve more deeply into the field. I had a more personal
motivation: I was newly pregnant. If it was true that my actions over the next nine months would
affect my offspring for the rest of his life, I needed to know more.
Of course, no woman who is pregnant today can escape hearing the message that what
she does affects her fetus. She hears it at doctor’s appointments, sees it in the pregnancy
guidebooks: Do eat this, don’t drink that, be vigilant but never stressed. Expectant mothers
could be forgiven for feeling that pregnancy is just a nine-month slog, full of guilt and devoid of
pleasure, and this research threatened to add to the burden.
But the scientists I met weren’t full of dire warnings but of the excitement of discovery -
and the hope that their discoveries would make a positive difference. Research on fetal origins
is prompting a revolutionary shift in thinking about where human qualities come from and when
they begin to develop. It’s turning pregnancy into a scientific frontier: the National Institutes of
Health embarked last year on a multi decade study
that will examine its subjects before they’re born. And it makes the womb a promising target
for prevention, raising hopes of conquering public-health scourges like obesity and heart disease
through interventions before birth.
Time Magazine, October 4, 2010

Complete the sentence.

1. With regard to the nurture-nature, continuity-discontinuity and change-stability
controversies, the wiser stand is
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________
As far as our discussions are concerned, which statement is correct and which one is wrong?
Put a check (✓) before the correct statement and mark x the wrong one. If you mark a
statement x, explain why.
_________1. Heredity exerts a- greater influence on human development than environment.
_________2. What has been experienced in the earlier stages of development can no longer
be changed.
_________3. From the perspective of life-span developmentalist, later experiences are the key
determinants of a person’s development.

RESEARCH CONNECTION
Read a research related to issues on human development. Fill out the matrix below. Strongly
suggested topic is fetal origins.

Problem Research Methodology

Sources: (Bibliographical entry format)

Findings Conclusion
How are the findings of this research useful to teachers?
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________

SYNAPSE SRENGTHENERS

1. Read the published book The Nurture Assumption, by Judith Harris (1998).
2. State in not more than 2 paragraphs the thesis of Judith Harris book.
3. a. Watch “Lonely Only” in your YouTube. Only Children: Debunking the Myths About Single
Children.
b. In 1896 Granville Stanley Hall described only children as “deficient on the social side,”
“petted,” “humored,” “indulged,” and “spoiled.” Today, many consider this a MYTH-WHAT DO
YOU THINK?
For related articles, refer to TIME Magazine, July 19, 2010 issue. State in not more than 10
sentences the position expressed in the YouTube and in the Time Magazine.
4. Watch “The battle between nature and nurture”, Irene Gallego Romero, TEDxNTU. What
conclusions can you derive from the battle between nature and nurture?

REFLECTION

1. Relate what you learned here to your personal development. Reflect on your own personal
development. What has helped you become the person that you are now? Is what you have
become a product of the mere interaction of heredity and environment? Or is what you have
become a product of both heredity and environment interacting and what you have decided or
determined yourself to become? (Self-determination or freedom is a third factor). Write your
reflections.