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Nature nurture debate introduction
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Student ID: 1230879 Tayla AustinHuman Development – Semester 1
Despite our increasing knowledge and understanding of human development, the
argument for the relative impact of nature and nurture on human development continues.
Which has the greatest impact, nature or nurture? (3000 words)
Human development is the changes every human goes through at the different stages in
their lives. There are various types of development which I will be exploring, including
cognitive, physical, social and emotional. In this assignment I will also be considering how
nature and nurture have different impacts on the development of humans and talking in
depth about behaviour development.
The term ‘nature nurture’ refers to the debate within human development that considers
how certain human behaviours are a product of either inherited or acquired characteristics.
Nature is the genes that a person is born with passed on from parent to child. Nurture is the
affects a person’s environment and day to day experiences have on their growth and
development.
Different theorists argue for each side of the nature nurture debate and back up their
theories with experiments and observations of people during various stages of their lives.
Behaviourists believe when we are born our mind is a blank slate and everything we learn is
from the things around us and how we are nurtured. The concept states people have no
free will and their environment determines their behaviour and who they become. They
also say that all human behaviour is learnt from experiences, and new behaviour is learnt
from new experiences through classical or operant conditioning.
BF Skinner put forward the concept of ‘operant conditioning’ where he used positive or
negative reinforcement to reward or punish certain behaviour. His study consisted of
putting a hungry rat into a box and rewarding it with food if it performed a simple action of
touching a lever. At first the rat moved around the box and accidentally knocked the lever,
which would immediately release food into a container. After a few times of putting the rats
into the box, they quickly learned to go straight to the lever for food. The consequence of
receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and
again, proving stimulus – response association.
Tayla Austin 1|Page
, Student ID: 1230879 Tayla Austin
This can relate to the language development of toddlers as it shows that if someone is
positively rewarded for a good behaviour, they learn to behave in that way from an early
age. An example could be if a child was learning to speak and said the word ‘cat’ when they
wanted a drink. The parent would not know they wanted a drink and therefore not give
them anything. Because the child did not receive a drink, they now know that saying ‘cat’
was not the right behaviour and will try again in the future. However, if the child said the
word ‘cup’ then the parent would know what a cup was and reward the child with a drink.
After the child’s use of language is positively reinforced by receiving a drink, they would
then learn to keep using correct language in the future. This shows that positive
reinforcement for wanted behaviour can help a child’s language develop throughout their
life.
Like behaviourism, cognitive psychology suggests processes occur between stimuli -
response. An experience is inputted into the brain and processed to see if it fits in, then the
output is behaviour. However it believes development can be explained largely in terms of
both people’s genes and what they experience in everyday life so accounts for both sides of
the nature nurture debate. For example Piaget (1980) believed that children think
differently to adults and developed 4 universal stages of cognitive development that start as
soon as a baby is born. He believed cognition develops and matures in all children in the
same sequence of stages although individual differences may change the rate of progression
through each stage. Each child goes through the stages in the same order and has to achieve
a lower stage in order to move to the next one. (Mcleod 2007)
Piaget describes this first two years of a baby’s life as the sensorimotor stage. By 6-8 months
the infant shows a basic understanding of object permanence which develops further so
that by the age of 12 months the baby will be able to search for a hidden item. The baby
goes through experimentation with everyday tasks and between 8 and 12 months the infant
is able to intentionally undertake activities that have been repeated beforehand. The
infant /toddler then proceeds into greater experimentation and by 24 months develop the
ability to solve problems without first having to try something out to see if it works.
Tayla Austin 2|Page
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