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Nature Nurture Debate

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The notion of the nature nurture debate is an ongoing argument that deliberates the views of development and their influences. This debate questions whether genetics or the environment surrounding a child has greater influence on development. It is necessary to highlight a variety of current and popular opinions in regard to the debate to determine differences in perception and research and the greater influence in development. This essay will discuss the concept of nature and nurture, then the perceptions linked to both notions and finally highlight the differences between popular arguments and research to come to a conclusion on whether nature or nurture has a greater influence.
The reasoning for individual's unique characteristics is derived …show more content…

It can be argued through popular opinions that nurture has a prominent role in child development, which is highlighted in Walker and Plomin's research article, where teacher's responses were in favour of the environment for behavioural traits such as personality, behavioural problems and mental illness. These results emphasise that a child is greatly influenced by their surroundings as they grow up and undesirable influences such as adverse family situation and lack of recognition of the importance of education can have detrimental impacts on a child's behaviour. Through the twin study it is also suggested that dizygotic twins only share similarities due to developing in the same environment (Walker & Plomin, 2005). For many individuals, there is the popular belief that sharing an environment will generally result in similar development. However, individuals will respond differently even if they share the same environment as their exposure and experience in their surroundings will cause differences in child development (Slee & Shute, …show more content…

Reference List

Bonaccorso, J. (2018, March 18). personal communication.

Montag, C., Hahn, E., Reuter , M., Spinath, F. M., Davis , K., & Panksepp, J. (2016). The Role of Nature and Nurture for Individual Differences in Primary Emotional Systems: Evidence from a Twin Study. PLOS ONE, 11(3), 1-12.

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

Slee, P. T., & Shute, R. H. (2015). Child Development: Theories and Critical Perspectives (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Verenikina, I., Vialle, W., Lysaght, P., Duchesne, S., & McMaugh, A. (2018). Foundations of Human Development and Behaviour (3rd ed.). Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

Walker, S. O., & Plomin, R. (2005). The Nature-Nurture question: Teacher's perceptions of how genes and the environment influence educationally relevant behaviour. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 25(5),

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