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Nature versus nurture

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The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

"Nature versus nurture" in its modern sense was coined[1][2][3] by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (in his play, The Tempest: 4.1). Galton was influenced[4] by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized[3][4] for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.

The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive—representing an outdated state of knowledge.[5][6][6][7][8] Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?"[9][10][11][12] That is, the idea that either nature or nurture explains a creature's behavior is a sort of single cause fallacy.

In the social and political sciences, the nature versus nurture debate may be contrasted with the structure versus agency debate (i.e. socialization versus individual autonomy). For a discussion of nature versus nurture in language and other human universals, see also psychological nativism.

Scientific approach

To disentangle the effects of genes and environment, behavioral geneticists perform adoption and twin studies. Behavioral geneticists do not generally use the term "nurture" to explain that portion of the variance for a given trait (such as IQ or the Big Five personality traits) that can be attributed to environmental effects. Instead, two different types of environmental effects are distinguished: shared family factors (i.e., those shared by siblings, making them more similar) and nonshared factors (i.e., those that uniquely affect individuals, making siblings different). To express the portion of the variance due to the "nature" component, behavioral geneticists generally refer to the heritability of a trait.

With regard to the Big Five personality traits as well as adult IQ in the general U.S. population, the portion of the overall variance that can be attributed to shared family effects is often negligible.[13] On the other hand, most traits are thought to be at least partially heritable. In this context, the "nature" component of the variance is generally thought to be more important than that ascribed to the influence of family upbringing.

In her Pulitzer Prize-nominated book The Nurture Assumption, author Judith Harris argues that "nurture," as traditionally defined in terms of family upbringing does not effectively explain the variance for most traits (such as adult IQ and the Big Five personality traits) in the general population of the United States. On the contrary, Harris suggests that either peer groups or random environmental factors (i.e., those that are independent of family upbringing) are more important than family environmental effects.[14][15]

Although "nurture" has historically been referred to as the care given to children by the parents, with the mother playing a role of particular importance, this term is now regarded by some as any environmental (not genetic) factor in the contemporary nature versus nurture debate. Thus the definition of "nurture" has expanded to include influences on development arising from prenatal, parental, extended family, and peer experiences, and extending to influences such as media, marketing, and socio-economic status. Indeed, a substantial source of environmental input to human nature may arise from stochastic variations in prenatal development.[16][17]

Heritability estimates

family environment and genes) are compared to fraternal twins reared together (who also share family environment but only share half their genes). Another condition that permits the disassociation of genes and environment is adoption. In one kind of adoption study, biological siblings reared together (who share the same family environment and half their genes) are compared to adoptive siblings (who share their family environment but none of their genes).

Some have pointed out that environmental inputs affect the expression of genes (see the article on epigenetics). This is one explanation of how environment can influence the extent to which a genetic disposition will actually manifest.[citation needed] The interactions of genes with environment, called gene–environment interactions, are another component of the nature–nurture debate. A classic example of gene–environment interaction is the ability of a diet low in the amino acid phenylalanine to partially suppress the genetic disease phenylketonuria. Yet another complication to the nature–nurture debate is the existence of gene-environment correlations. These correlations indicate that individuals with certain genotypes are more likely to find themselves in certain environments. Thus, it appears that genes can shape (the selection or creation of) environments. Even using experiments like those described above, it can be very difficult to determine convincingly the relative contribution of genes and environment.

Interaction of genes and environment

In only very few cases is it fair to say that a trait is due almost entirely to nature, or almost entirely to nurture.[citation needed] In the case of most diseases now strictly identified as genetic, such as Huntington's disease, there is a better than 99.9% correlation between having the identified gene and the disease and a similar correlation for not having either. On the other hand, Huntington's animal models live much longer or shorter lives depending on how they are cared for (animal husbandry).

At the other extreme, traits such as native language are environmentally determined: linguists have found that any child (if capable of learning a language at all) can learn any human language with equal facility. With virtually all biological and psychological traits, however, genes and environment work in concert, communicating back and forth to create the individual.

But even in the most clear-cut cases, extreme genetic or environmental conditions can overrule the other—if a child is born mute due to a genetic mutation, it will not learn to speak any language regardless of the environment; similarly, someone who is practically certain to eventually develop Huntington's disease according to their genotype may die in an unrelated accident (an environmental event) long before the disease will manifest itself.

Examples of environmental, interactional, and genetic traits are:

Predominantly Environmental Interactional Predominantly Genetic
Specific language Height Blood type
Specific religion Weight Eye color
Skin color
The "two buckets" view of heritability.
More realistic "homogenous mudpie" view of heritability.

Steven Pinker (2004) likewise described several examples:

concrete behavioral traits that patently depend on content provided by the home or culture—which language one speaks, which religion one practices, which political party one supports—are not heritable at all. But traits that reflect the underlying talents and temperaments—how proficient with language a person is, how religious, how liberal or conservative—are partially heritable.

When traits are determined by a complex interaction of genotype and environment it is possible to measure the heritability of a trait within a population. However, many non-scientists who encounter a report of a trait having a certain percentage heritability imagine non-interactional, additive contributions of genes and environment to the trait. As an analogy, some laypeople may think of the degree of a trait being made up of two "buckets," genes and environment, each able to hold a certain capacity of the trait. But even for intermediate heritabilities, a trait is always shaped by both genetic dispositions and the environments in which people develop, merely with greater and lesser plasticities associated with these heritability measures.

Heritability measures always refer to the degree of variation between individuals in a population. These statistics cannot be applied at the level of the individual. It is incorrect to say that since the heritability index of personality is about 0.6, you got 60% of your personality from your parents and 40% from the environment. To help to understand this, imagine that all humans were genetic clones. The heritability index for all traits would be zero (all variability between clonal individuals must be due to environmental factors). And, contrary to erroneous interpretations of the heritibility index, as societies become more egalitarian (everyone has more similar experiences) the heritability index goes up (as environments become more similar, variability between individuals is due more to genetic factors).

A highly genetically loaded trait (such as eye color) still assumes environmental input within normal limits (a certain range of temperature, oxygen in the atmosphere, etc.). A more useful distinction than "nature vs. nurture" is "obligate vs. facultative"—under typical environmental ranges, what traits are more "obligate" (e.g., the nose—everyone has a nose) or more "facultative" (sensitive to environmental variations, such as specific language learned during infancy). Another useful distinction is between traits that are likely to be adaptations (such as the nose) and those that are byproducts of adaptations (such the white color of bones), or are due to random variation (non-adaptive variation in, say, nose shape or size).

IQ debate

Main article: Heritability of IQ

Evidence suggests that family environmental factors may have an effect upon childhood IQ, accounting for up to a quarter of the variance. On the other hand, by late adolescence this correlation disappears, such that adoptive siblings are no more similar in IQ than strangers.[18]

Moreover, adoption studies indicate that, by adulthood, adoptive siblings are no more similar in IQ than strangers (IQ correlation near zero), while full siblings show an IQ correlation of 0.6. Twin studies reinforce this pattern: monozygotic (identical) twins raised separately are highly similar in IQ (0.74), more so than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (0.6) and much more than adoptive siblings (~0.0).[19]

Personality traits

Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptions. Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes. Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment. Unexpectedly, some adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of adopted siblings are no more similar than random pairs of strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality are zero by adulthood. As is the case with personality, non-shared environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture" may not be the predominant factor in "environment."[citation needed]

Advanced techniques

The power of quantitative studies of heritable traits has been expanded by the development of new techniques. Developmental genetic analysis examines the effects of genes over the course of a human lifespan. For example, early studies of intelligence, which mostly examined young children, found that heritability measures 40–50%. Subsequent developmental genetic analyses found that variance attributable to additive environmental effects is less apparent in older individuals,[20][21][22] with estimated heritability of IQ being higher than that in adulthood. However, the high IQ heritability estimates are derived with questionable methodologies, according to work by Peter Schönemann.[23]

Another advanced technique, multivariate genetic analysis, examines the genetic contribution to several traits that vary together. For example, multivariate genetic analysis has demonstrated that the genetic determinants of all specific cognitive abilities (e.g., memory, spatial reasoning, processing speed) overlap greatly, such that the genes associated with any specific cognitive ability will affect all others. Similarly, multivariate genetic analysis has found that genes that affect scholastic achievement completely overlap with the genes that affect cognitive ability.

Extremes analysis, examines the link between normal and pathological traits. For example, it is hypothesized that a given behavioral disorder may represent an extreme of a continuous distribution of a normal behavior and hence an extreme of a continuous distribution of genetic and environmental variation. Depression, phobias, and reading disabilities have been examined in this context.

For a few highly heritable traits, some studies have identified loci associated with variance in that trait in some individuals. For example, research groups have identified loci that are associated with schizophrenia (Harrison and Owen, 2003) in subsets of patients with that diagnosis.

Philosophical difficulties

Are the traits real?

It is sometimes a question whether the "trait" being measured is even a real thing. As an example, much energy has been devoted to calculating the heritability of intelligence (usually the I.Q., or intelligence quotient), but there is still some disagreement as to what exactly "intelligence" is.

Biological determinism

If genes do contribute substantially to the development of personal characteristics such as intelligence and personality, then many wonder if this implies that genes determine who we are. See Genetic determinism and Biological determinism.

Is the problem real?

Many scientists feel that the very question opposing nature to nurture is a fallacy. Already in 1951, Calvin Hall in his seminal chapter[24] remarked that the discussion opposing nature and nurture was fruitless. If an environment is changed fundamentally, then the heritability of a character changes, too. Conversely, if the genetic composition of a population changes, then heritability will also change. As an example, we may use phenylketonuria (PKU), which causes brain damage and progressive mental retardation. PKU can be treated by the elimination of phenylalanine from the diet. Hence, a character (PKU) that used to have a virtually perfect heritability is not heritable any more if modern medicine is available (the actual allele causing PKU would still be inherited, but the phenotype PKU would not be expressed anymore). Similarly, within, say, an inbred strain of mice, no genetic variation is present and every character will have a zero heritability. If the complications of gene–environment interactions and correlations (see above) are added, then it appears to many that heritability, the epitome of the nature–nurture opposition, is "a station passed."[25]

Myths about identity

Within the debates surrounding cloning, for example, is the far-fetched contention that a Jesus or a Hitler could be "re-created" through genetic cloning. Current thinking finds this largely inaccurate, and discounts the possibility that the clone of anyone would grow up to be the same individual due to environmental variation. For example, like clones, identical twins are genetically identical, and unlike the hypothetical clones share the same family environment, yet they are not identical in personality and other traits.

History of the nature versus nurture debate

Further information: Empiricism and Tabula rasa

Traditionally, human nature has been thought of as not only inherited but divinely ordained.[citation needed] Whole ethnic groups were considered to be, by nature, superior or inferior. Since the late Middle Ages, intellectuals increasingly attributed differences among races, classes and genders to socialization (nurture), rather than to innate qualities (nature).[citation needed] In the 20th century, the Nazis pursued an agenda based on the concept of human nature as defined by one's race. The Communists, on the other hand, largely followed Marx's lead in defining the human identity as subject to social structures, not nature. In scientific circles, this conflict led to ongoing controversy of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.[citation needed]

See also

Look up nurture in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

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  2. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=CCepY1AJYNQC&pg=PA9&dq=Nature+versus+nurture+galton&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1900&as_brr=0&cd=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
  3. ^ a b http://books.google.com/books?id=GkMJDdcL7QUC&pg=PA35&dq=Nature+versus+nurture+galton&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1900&as_brr=0&cd=7#v=onepage&q&f=false
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  5. ^ Dusheck, Jennie, The Interpretation of Genes. Natural History, October 2002.
  6. ^ a b Carlson, N.R. et al.. (2005) Psychology: the science of behaviour (3rd Canadian ed) Pearson Ed. ISBN 0-205-45769-X
  7. ^ Ridley, M. (2003) Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-200663-4
  8. ^ Westen, D. (2002) Psychology: Brain, Behavior & Culture. Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-38754-1
  9. ^ Scott, A. (1995). Stairway to the mind: The controversial new science of consciousness. Springer. ISBN 0387943811
  10. ^ Michael J. Meaney (2001) Nature, nurture, and the disunity of knowledge. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 935:50–61.
  11. ^ Herschkowitz, N & Herschkowitz, EC (2002) A good start in life: Understanding your child's brain and behavior. Joseph Henry Press. ISBN 0309076390
  12. ^ Meaney M. (2004) The nature of nurture: maternal effects and chromatin remodelling, in Essays in Social Neuroscience, Cacioppo, JT & Berntson, GG eds. MIT press. ISBN 0262033232
  13. ^ DeFries, J.C., McGuffin, P., McClearn, G.E., Plomin, R. (2000) Behavioral Genetics 4th Ed. W H Freeman & Co.
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  15. ^ The Edge Annual Question-2006
  16. ^ Rice DS, Tang Q, Williams RW, Harris BS, Davisson MT, Goldowitz D (September 1997). "Decreased retinal ganglion cell number and misdirected axon growth associated with fissure defects in Bst/+ mutant mice". Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 38 (10): 2112–24. PMID 9331275. Retrieved 2009-04-14.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ Stetter M, Lang EW, Müller A (1993). "Emergence of orientation selective simple cells simulated in deterministic and stochastic neural networks". Biol. Cybern. 68 (5): 465–76. doi:10.1007/BF00198779. PMID 8476987. Retrieved 2009-04-14.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., McClearn, G. E. and McGuffin, P. (2001). Behavioral Genetics (4th Ed.). New York: Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-5159-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ Bouchard TJ Jr. Genetic and environmental influences on adult intelligence and special mental abilities. Hum Biol. 1998 Apr; 70(2): 257–79
  20. ^ Plomin, R.; Spinath, F.M. (2004). "Intelligence: genetics, genes, and genomics". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 86 (1): 112–129. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.1.112. PMID 14717631.
  21. ^ M. McGue, T.J. Bouchard Jr., W.G. Iacono, & D.T. Lykken (1993) Behavioral Genetics of Cognitive Ability: A Life-Span Perspective, in Nature, Nurture, and Psychology, by R. Plomin & G.E. McClearn (Eds.) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
  22. ^ Plomin, R.; Fulker, D.W.; Corley, R.; DeFries, J.C. (1997). "Nature, Nurture and Cognitive Development from 1 to 16 years: A Parent-Offspring Adoption Study". Psychological Science. 8: 442–447. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00458.x.
  23. ^ Schönemann, P. Models and muddles of heritability. Genetica, 99, 97–108
  24. ^ C.S. Hall (1951) The Genetics of Behavior, in Handbook of Experimental Psychology, by S.S. Stevens (Ed.) New York, NY, USA: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 304–329
  25. ^ Crusio, W.E. (1990). "Estimating heritabilities in quantitative behavior genetics: A station passed". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 13: 127–128. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
Notes
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