NURTURE DEBATE

CITATION: Merriam
grow, develop, or succeed; formal : the care and attention given to someone or
something that is growing or developing. nurture. verb. English Language
Learners Definition of nurture (Entry 2 of 2) : to help (something or someone) to
grow, develop, or succeed.

CITATION: Medicinenet.com
Philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke independently thought that
people are born as blank slates (i.e. "tabula rasa"), and that their eventual individual
differences develop solely due to the result of environmental influences (Psychology
Encyclopedia, 2017; Duschinsky, 2012; Nesterak, 2015). Twentieth century
behavioral psychologist John Watson shared a similar perspective, believing that the
events that take place during early childhood have far more influence on what kind of
adults we become compared to the effects of our genes (Haggbloom et al, 2002).

Whatever illnesses your parents, grandparents, siblings, and other biological family
members have. does not guarantee you will inherit them, but it does increase the
likelihood that you may develop them. On the other hand, it is understood that
environmental factors often have a significant effect on whether or not you develop
the health problems that run in your family.

Intelligence and subsequent learning also are viewed as being largely molded by the
environment the person grows up in, both before and after birth. (European College of
Neuropsychopharmacology, 2007; Kan et al, 2013).

CITATION: behavioralscientist.org
As psychologist David S. Moore explains in his newest book, The Developing
Genome, this burgeoning field reveals that what counts is not what genes you have so
much as what your genes are doing. And what your genes are doing is influenced by
the ever-changing environment they’re in. Factors like stress, nutrition, and exposure
to toxins all play a role in how genes are expressed, essentially which genes are turned
on or off.

CITATION: simplypsychology.org
Empiricism point of view, psychological characteristics and behavioral differences
that emerge through infancy and childhood are the results of learning.  It is how you
are brought up (nurture) that governs the psychologically significant aspects of child
development and the concept of maturation applies only to the biological. 

Bandura's (1977) social learning theory states that aggression is learned from the
environment through observation and imitation. This is seen in his famous Bobo doll
experiment (Bandura, 1961). Also Skinner (1957) believed that language is learnt
from other people via behavior shaping techniques.

Freud (1905) stated that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult
lives, shaping our personality. He thought that parenting is of primary importance to a
child's development, and the family as the most important feature of nurture was a
common theme throughout twentieth-century psychology (which was dominated by
environmentalists theories).

CITATION: verywellmond.com
Empiricists take the position that all or most behaviors and characteristics result from
learning. Behaviorism is a good example of a theory rooted in empiricism. The
behaviorists believe that all actions and behaviors are the results of conditioning.
Theorists such as John B. Watson believed that people could be trained to do and
become anything, regardless of their genetic background.
An example of a nativist theory within psychology is Chomsky's concept of a
language acquisition device (or LAD).2 According to this theory, all children are born
with an instinctive mental capacity that allows them to both learn and produce
language.
Some characteristics are tied to environmental influences. How a person behaves can
be linked to influences such as parenting styles and learned experiences. For example,
a child might learn through observation and reinforcement to say 'please' and 'thank
you.' Another child might learn to behave aggressively by observing older children
engage in violent behavior on the playground.
One example of an empiricist theory within psychology is Albert Bandura's social
learning theory. According to the theory, people learn by observing the behavior of
others. In his famous Bobo doll experiment, Bandura demonstrated that children
could learn aggressive behaviors simply by observing another person acting
aggressively.

CITATION: yourdictionary.com
How Nurture May Impact Intelligence: Those who would argue that a child's
intelligence was affected by nurture would look at the child's educational background
as well as how his or her parents raised him or her. These individuals would state that
the intelligence level which permitted the child to be so successful is largely the result
of the child's upbringing and the school system.
Children develop personalities, or tendencies toward certain behaviors, such as
shyness or aggression, that can’t seem to be explained because neither parent
demonstrates the same trait. In this situation, it can be argued that nurture is at play in
the development of the child's personality.

CITATION: phys.org
Nurture could have an even greater effect than originally thought, according to a
University of Manchester study that is set to shake up the ‘nature versus nurture’
debate.

 Reinmar Hager and Jason Wolf at the Faculty of Life Sciences together with their
collaborator James Cheverud at St Louis have shown how maternal environment can
affect how genes are expressed, influencing the body weight and growth of young
mice, even if they are not related to the ‘mother’.
They have thus revealed an additional route by which the environment may affect
how genes are expressed. Focusing on genomic imprinting, the researchers
demonstrated that the environment has a strong effect on how imprinting influences
body weight and growth in mice.
Dr Hager, whose findings are published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society
B (27 May 2009), said: “Our results suggest a greater plasticity of genomic imprinting
than previously assumed and may have far-reaching implications for how organisms
can flexibly adapt to changing environments. For example, mothers could pass on
information to their offspring about the environment in which they will be growing
up, such as availability of resources. Thus, young may be better adapted to the
environment when they know what to expect.”

CITATION: goodtherapy.org
Certain genetic factors may create a predisposition for a particular illness, but the
probability that a person develops that illness depends in part on environment
(nurture). When a genetic variant indicates the possibility of developing a mental
illness, this information can be used to direct positive (nurturing) behavior in such
a way that the condition may not develop or may develop with less severity.

James Fallon, a neuroscientist who discovered that he had the brain of a

psychopath, has stated that he believes growing up in a nurturing and loving
environment helped him become a successful adult and may have been effective
at preventing him from fully developing traits of psychopathy.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool recently found that while a family

history of mental health conditions was the second strongest predictor of mental
illness, the strongest predictor was in fact life events and experiences, such as
childhood bullying , abuse, or other trauma. This supports the idea that nurture
plays significant role in the development of mental health issues.

CITATION: educationoftheheartdialogue.org
Psychologist Michel Boivin. Boivin, Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment at Laval University in
Canada, “The first lesson of these longitudinal studies,” he said, “is that
developmental propensities are established very early in life.” (His current studies
start tracking babies at five months of age.) “As soon as we can assess shyness or
aggression with reliability, there’s a tendency for individual differences to appear.
However, the extent to which they remain stable or change is very much a function of
the extent to which the environment or context remains stable.

"Genes are important. They account for a significant portion of individual differences,
but genes are not fixed entities; gene expression varies depending on the
environment." - MICHEL BOIVIN