Nature vs. Nurture

The question as to whether Nature vs. Nurture is more influential in child (person) development is over. 

 

Nature and nurture are interactive, or both affect the other.  Genetics and the environment interact in unique and ubiquitous, mostly subtle ways to influence who we become and how we behave. 

 

When you watch or observe children (and adults) do you wonder if they were ‘born to do that’ or if someone ‘taught them to do that’?  The answer is not either ‘born' or ‘taught’.  Many social and psychology researchers work long and hard to tease out relationships between 'nature' and 'nurture'.  Absolute answers are hard to obtain. Volumes of published research reports exist regarding the basis for intelligence. 

 

Some researchers have concluded genetics are 50% of the basis for intelligence.  Yet there is a strong cultural belief that children are primarily taught to attain the goals and behaviors.  The most well-known and studied theory for ‘nurture’ is Behaviorism. 

 

Strict behaviorist B.F. Skinner is probably rolling in his grave while I write about the influence of genetics on child development.  I read about his death in the newspaper in 1990.  He went to his grave believing in ‘tabula rasa’ or the blank slate.  He believed that every child was born a ‘blank slate’, and that through conditioning alone, the child could be raised to be anything. 

 

You want your baby to be a violinist or a gymnast?  Dr. Skinner would have said it is possible.  Dr. Skinner was wrong.  Some babies are born with the potential to become a violinist, some are not.  Some of the babies with the potential will reach the level of violinist, if they are born into a family that can provide them with the support to learn the violin. 

Numbers and percentages are used by news media to report on research reports. Numbers and percentages are almost concrete in that they are concepts well understood by most people.  I accept that about 50% of intelligence is based on genetic potential.  

 

However, an exact number percentage is barely meaningful to me anymore. To make a definitive statement about the relationship between early language development and high school graduation involves a whole world of numbers and calculations under the mysterious umbrella called ‘statistics’. 

 

Most parents say “just tell me what I need to know” – how do I get my child to talk early AND graduate from high school. 

Knowing that nature and nurture are interactive, how is that helpful when making decisions on how to raise your child(ren)?  On a daily basis, parents must decide on multiple, varied, and sometime minute choices for their children. 

 

The parents who think about those daily decisions, before deciding, are working on the nurture end of influence.  Some parents exhaust themselves with the work of parenting decisions.

 

The parents who do not think about the daily decisions in child care are still influencing their children, but they are not working at it.  Parents who express frustration with their child’s behavior while continuing the same decisions continue to get same results. 

Every parent of one child believes in behaviorism (nurture) and every parent of 2 or more children believes in genetics.  (Parents in the latter category will chuckle.) 

 

Parents of one child have more time to invest in configuring the perfect or best home/life for the child.  Each developmental milestone seems magical and follows the intense efforts of the parent to promote development. 

 

(Ever notice in families how there are more photos of child number 1 as a baby than of any of the children born later?  My second child expresses frustration when I cannot quote the exact moment of her developmental milestones, compared to the precise database I carry mentally on my firstborn.) 

Back to 50% influence…. Genetics or DNA – whatever you and every one of us are born with - sets the potential and limit on what we can become.

 

With the influence of the environment we grow-up in, we may or may not reach that potential.  Saying that the environment (parental guidance, school, home) equals the means to reaching our fullest potential gives tremendous credence to behaviorism and ‘nuture’ for developmental theory.   

 

However, to state that not every child has the same potential is anathema to behaviorism.  We do not all come into the world with same potential, and that is why B.F. Skinner was wrong.  We (humans) are just too complex for absolute formulaic theory.

 

Nurturing children for their specific needs at each age of development is how they become the most they can be. 

 

Fortunately, despite the complexity of human nature most of us have lots in common.  Sweeping statements about how music experienced in utero increases the intellectual development of babies, well, it might be true for some, or even most.  That’s the real brunt of statements of fact on child development – it applies to most of us. 

 

You have to decide for yourself if it applies to you, your children, or anyone else you know. 

Heredity - everyone believes in it until their children act like fools!

 

Comments

[vicky]

okay, you say skinner is wrong for saying that every child is born with a blank slate and has the potential to do 'anything'.

your argument is that a child can only do 'anything' if they have the support whilst trying to succeed.

isnt that exactly what Skinner is saying?
that all children are born with a blank slate (potential to do anything) and its how they are influenced in life to wether they are able to reach their full potential.

[The Barbara who lives here]

Thanks for your comment, vicky.

I hope you will go back and read this page again. You've missed taking-in part of the message.

I.did.not. "your argument is that a child can only do 'anything' if they have the support whilst trying to succeed" I made no such argument.

You missed the "potential" component for the support to succeed. Just like Skinner.

We are all born with an equal humanity, soul, as it were. But we are not all born equally in our potential to learn.

Despite many years and much money, public schools still produce outcomes that are strikingly similar to the bell curve of intelligence.

The blank slate exists in the cortex. If the born brain of an infant is not neurologically intact, the potential for the nurture is capped according to the potential within the child's brain development.

All the other essays linked in the box under this one (middle column) add to this dicussion. Recommended reading for you, vicky.

[Bethany]

I wanted desperately to be a dancer when I was a child. My mother nurtured this desire with dance lessons, and a well designed practice area in our home. I practiced for hours at a time. If we were strictly the result of our nurturing, I would be a gifted dancer. Instead I never developed the coordination and grace required for dancing and after 6 years decided that no matter how much I worked at it, it was just not going to happen. Genetically I did not have the capacity to develop into a dancer. I was not a blank slate. The same thing happened with playing an instrument later in school. I desperately wanted to be in band, so my mother bought me a clarinet and I joined band. I received extra help and practiced daily, much to the distress of all within hearing range. Even my stuffed animals cringed. Had I been a blank slate I should have become a musician. But genetically, it wasn't happening. By nature I can not keep rhythm to save myself and I can not hear the subtle differences in tones. These are two different examples from my life. The idea of a blank slate means that if you take a child in infancy you can create whatever you wish in that child based solely upon the environment in which you place them. I should be a graceful, skilled dancer who also excels at music by this theory. Nature says that who you are is predestined in your genetics - hence why no matter the immersion in dance and music lessons I did not succeed. Reality is that who we are is a result of both and that there is no way either one can ever exist in isolation in the real world. It is impossible to be a blank slate without any genetic traits, and it is impossible to develop completely as a result of your genetic traits without any influence from your environment. The ratio of the influence of the two may differ from person to person and be up for debate, but we are both our genetic coding and the experiences that we have in life.

[The Barbara who lives here]

Bethany, eXACTly.