MODULE 3

Issues on Human
Development
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 Greenough
Nature vs. Nurture
Nature is your genes.
The physical and
personality traits
determined by your
genes stay the same
irrespective of where
you were born and
raised.
Nurture refers to ypur
childhood, or how you
were bought up.
Continuity vs. Discontinuity
Continuous development that which occurs
gradually over time.
Discontinuous development ,however,
categorical and refers to changes in stages.
Development as a whole is a combination and
interaction of these two.
Stability vs.
Change

Stability is the
condition of being
stable or in
equilibrium, and thus
resistant to change.
Change is the
process of becoming
different.
•Development is not all nature or all
nurture
•Interaction is the key of nature and
nurture rather than either factor alone
•Both genes and environment are
necessary for a person even to exist
•Heredity and environment operate
together or cooperate and interact
•The relative contributions of heredity
and environment are not addictive.
•Genes produce proteins throughout
the life span, in many different
environments.
•Heredity is already fixed
•Like heredity, environment is
complex
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?
• Your life as a fetus
Fetal origins
-whose pioneers assert that the nine
months of gestation constitute the most
consequential period of our lives,
PERMANENTLY influencing the wiring of the
brain and the functioning or organs such as
heart,liver and pancreas.
• No woman who is pregnant today can
escape hearing the message that what she
does affects her fetus.