C800 Psychology : Nature Nurture in Psychology

Understanding social and biological determinants of human behaviour displayed in health and social care context CASE SCENARIO - Gemma is 5 years old. She is a happy child and likes to play with her toys. Her parents are worried because she has not started to speak yet. Initial assessment did not reveal any serious diagnostic problem. However, the health visitor further test is carried out by paediatricians and speech therapists.

2.1 Give an introduction to NATURE versus NURTURE CONTROVERSY.

2.2 EXPLAIN the various social factors influencing behaviour.

2.3 EXPLAIN the biological factors influencing behaviour.

2.4 LINK TO GEMMA and Explains the probable reasons behind her condition (include reasons both social and biological).

2.5 In conclusion, show how both biological and social factors are required for health relationship in our society.

There has been an ongoing debate of nature versus nurture and the main concern is how certain aspects of one's behaviour cab be said to be either acquired or inherited characteristics. Nature can be said to be influenced by genetics and biological factors which are inherited while on the other hand, nurture is said to be the influenced by external factors. The nature versus nurture debate is concerned with the contributions that each make to the human behaviour.

Some behaviour traits in a person can be driven by that person's past learning experiences. Punishments and rewards received from parents, peers or teachers, can go a long way in the shaping of one's behaviour. Behaviour can also be influenced through the observation of people around us. Under the social learning theory, Albert Bandura, a major contributor of the social learning theory, (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961 cited in Introduction to social psychology by Dunn, Aknin & Norton, 2008) illustrated that children do learn to how to imitate aggressive behaviour after seeing others get rewarded for aggressive behaviour. Research also suggested that young people were more likely to get influenced by watching aggressive movies and television shows.

Social factors like parental influence influence behaviour, parents being a model that their children emulate. The research that has been conducted on modelling has shown that a child is likely to model his/her parent if they hold them with high regard and if the parent acts as the main source of reinforcement to the child; a child’s behaviour is highly influenced by his/her parents because from birth, a parent will try to mould and encourage behaviour that is acceptable to them and to the society at large. Parental support could be said to be a greater influence on a child’s behaviour and could be said to include encouragement, the giving of affection and praise. When a child experiences these, to them it equates to being loved and highly valued.

Biological factors like brain development, traits that are inherited and genetics influence behaviour. Under genetics, the disruption of genes caused by events that occur before, during or after conception may lead to disorders whose effects could either be felt immediately or later in life. It cannot be specifically said that genes are the only direct determinants of behaviour, instead they encode certain molecular products that build and govern how the brain functions, which in turn helps to express behaviour.

Gemma could likely be diagnosed with specific language impairment which in essence means that her language development is deficient for no reason at all. For a long time, it was assumed that brain damage around the time of an infant's birth, poor/ bad parenting or transient hearing loss were some of the causes of specific language impairment. At another time, it was thought that a certain gene was the cause of this but no particular cause could be said to have accounted for most, if not all cases. Specific language impairment is more complex, in that, environmental and genetic risk factors are said to interact.

Phonological short term memory and vocabulary has been said by some researchers to be another factor responsible for SLI. Some investigations have suggested that memory deficit may be prevalent in nature in children suffering from this language impairment (Eisenson, 1972; Johnston & Smith, 1989; Tallal, Stark & Millits, 1985 as cited in Heather, K.J Van der Lely & David Howard, 1993)

Individuals can neither be credited for having poor/bad health nor having good health. They are very unlikely to have direct control of some of the determining factors discussed above. Support from one's family, community or friends could in all likelihood lead to better healthy relationships; also not forgetting the beliefs of the family, customs and traditions of a community. Personal behaviour and certain coping skills that may be genetic in nature could be a determining factor on how well one deals with stress and challenges which could very well mean healthy relationships in the society.

References:

Carlson, A, ‘How parents influence deviant behaviour among adolescents: An analysis of their family life, their community and their peers’.

Dorothy V M Bishop 2006, 'What causes specific language impairment in children? Current directions in psychological science', pp. 217-221, retrieved from, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2582396/

Dunn, Aknin & Norton 2008, 'Introduction to social psychology', retrieved from, https://catalogue.pearsoned.ca/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0134081528.pdf

Gene E. Robinson & Russell D. Fernald & David F. Clayton 2008, 'Genes and Social Behaviour', published in final edited form as, Science. 2008 Nov 7; 322 (5903): 896-900.

Heather, K.J Van der Lely & David Howard 1993, 'Children with specific language impairment: Linguistic impairment or short term memory deficit?' Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, vol. 36, pp. 1193-1207.

McLeod, S.A 2008, 'Nature Nurture in Psychology', retrieved from, www.simplypsychology.org/nature vs nurture.html

World Health Organisation, 'Health Impact Assessment', retrieved from, www.who.int/hia/evidence/doh/en/