Isabella Garca Garca

201328716

Nurture vs Nature: The Wrong Debate of the 20th Century

Psychologists have been interested in the differences on the aspects of intelligence from
individual to individual. This has led to the nurture vs nature debate which focuses on which of these
two points is of greater importance in the construction of intelligence. Nevertheless, this debate will
never get to a solution if the question keeps being which of the two aspects is more important. The
real question must be, how these points interact so that intelligence is built. First, the genotypic
and environmental features of a person correlate in the development of intelligence because these
have different roles on it. Second, there exists a variation in the intelligence of a person having into
account genetic features such as the sex of the person and environmental features such as
schooling. Nurture and nature are not elements that should be kept apart since both play an
essential part in the development of intelligence.

The nurture vs nature debate is a dispute in whether human behavior, personality, cultural,
and other features are caused by genetic (genetic and hormone-based) factors or environmental
ones (environment and experience) respectively (McLeod, 1970). Nonetheless, this debate is
focused on the split of nature and nurture which is not accurate because these two are counterparts;
in this work, the influence of the genotype on the experience is the one to be discussed. Scarr and
McCartney propose The Theory of Genotype-Environment Effects based on Plomin et al (1977)
genotype-environment correlations. This theory explains development with three nurture-nature
propositions that can be clearly applied to the development of intelligence in humans. First, they
describe the three-different genotype-environmental effects. The passive kind takes place when the
environment in which the child is raised is correlated with his genotype. The evocative kind is when
others are influenced by the genotype of the kid and he receives their responses so he is influenced
as well. And the active kind that is when the kid pays more attention to information of the
environment that is influenced by his genotype. Second, Scarr and McCartney explain the
importance of the changes during development of the points mentioned above (the effects change
from period to period). Third, the influence of the genotype on the experience increases with
development and with the swing between passive to active. The theory explained before can be
shown empirically with the studies made by the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition that
observe children adapting to problem solving events. Children select the functions that are best
related to their abilities, interests, and personalities. This is a clear example of the active kind effect
proposed by Scarr and McCartney. In this way, it is explained why the correlation between
environmental characteristics and genetical ones (influence of genotype on the environment), has
a great importance on the development of intelligence.

On the other hand, nurture and nature are not aspects that can be separated in the
explanation of the development of intelligence because when there is a variation of it, it is caused
by different features in genetics and environment. Nature and nurture join so that the child can
develop, in this case his intelligence. In comparison with the theory of Scarr and McCartney, Neisser
et al (1996) proposed that the process in which the genes and the environment interact is
bidirectional. The action of genes always involves an environment that can be biochemical or social
and the environment acts through structures that genes have created. One environmental feature
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that can be highly related to intelligence is schooling. People who attend to school tend to develop
certain skills and attitudes that are determined specifically from the school they study in. people
who dont attend to school have negative impacts on their level of intelligence (IQ). Moreover, there
are as well many biological features that can affect intelligence. One of these is the sex of the child
which can make the intelligence vary from men to women. Men are more likely to have higher
scores of mathematical abilities while women are more likely to be better on verbal abilities (Neisser
et al, 1996). Now, if schooling and sex are going to have a bidirectional relationship the case will be
that the action of genes (being a girl) involves a social environment (school) and the school acts on
the girl by providing her mathematical and verbal abilities, but as she is a girl she probably will do
better on verbal abilities. A research that is related to this example is the one made by Hines et al
(1992) that was based on the difference in the sizes or shapes of particular neural structures. They
found that there are differences in the size of the corpus callosum of men and women that are
correlated with verbal fluency. These differences could be the result from differences in patterns of
life experience so brain development and experience may have bidirectional effects (Neisser et al,
1996).

It is evident that there are many genetic individual features that affect the development of
intelligence, but the individual differences in experience is a topic that has few information and it is
a key point to the true understanding of intelligence. Also, there is a lot more to know about the
differences in the neural structures of individuals. This is of great importance to understand the
changes in features caused by the biology of the brain due to the changes in experience or the other
way.

In conclusion, nurture vs nature must not be a debate, but more of a joint of the features of
each one. This was evident in this work given the Theory of Genotype-Environment Effects that
explains the influence the genotype has in the experience of developing intelligence, explained as a
one direction correlation. On the other hand, the action of genes always involves an environment
that can be biochemical or social and the environment acts through structures that genes have
created and in this way, this is a bidirectional correlation.

REFERENCES:

Cole, M., & The Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (1980). Niche-picking. Unpublished
manuscript, University of California, San Diego. Retrieved April 20, 2017.

Hines, M., Chiu, L., McAdams, L. A., Bentler, M. P., & Lipcamon, J. (1992). Cognition and the corpus
callosum: Verbal fluency, visuospatial ability, language lateralization related to midsagittal surface
areas of the corpus callosum. Behavioral Neuroscience, 106, 3-14. Retrieved April 20, 2017.

McLeod, S. (1970, January 01). Nature vs Nurture in Psychology. Retrieved April 20, 2017, from
https://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html
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Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, Jr., T. J., Boykin, W., Brody, N., Ceci, S. J., . . . Urbina, S. (1996).
Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns . American Psychologist , 51(2), 77-101. Retrieved April 20,
2017.

Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & Loehlin, J. C. (1977). Genotype-environment interaction and correlation
in the analysis of human behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 309-322. Retrieved April 20, 2017.

Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How People Make Their Own Environments: A Theory of Genotype
Environment Effects. Child Development, 54(2), 424-435. Retrieved April 20, 2017.