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Issues and debates: nature and nurture

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Are we shaped by our genes or by our environment? Psychological problems are a good place to explore this long-running debate.

Key terms

Nature: behaviour is caused by inherited, biological factors, such as genes, brain structure and neurotransmitters.
Nurture: behaviour is caused by the environment and experience, such as upbringing, learning, stressful events and culture.

Psychological problems as evidence

Nature side: genetic explanations of depression (5-HTT gene) and addiction (DRD2 gene); twin studies; drug treatments that change brain chemistry, such as SSRIs.
Nurture side: the cognitive theory of depression (negative schemas from experience); learning theory of addiction (conditioning and role models); CBT, which changes learned thinking.
Interaction: Caspi et al. (2003) found the short 5-HTT allele raised the risk of depression mainly when people experienced stressful life events. This shows nature and nurture working together.

Evaluating the debate

Most psychologists now take an interactionist view: genes may give a vulnerability (diathesis), and the environment can trigger it (stress).
This matters for treatment: combining drugs (nature) with CBT (nurture) is often recommended.
Taking only one side is reductionist and may miss important causes.
Worked example

How does Caspi et al. (2003) show both nature and nurture?

  1. Nature: participants' 5-HTT gene type.
  2. Nurture: the stressful life events they experienced.
  3. Depression was most likely when both the short allele and stress were present.

Answer: The short allele (nature) only greatly raised depression risk when combined with stressful life events (nurture), showing an interaction.

Key idea

Nature means inherited biological factors; nurture means environment and experience. Genes (5-HTT, DRD2) support nature; cognitive and learning theories support nurture. Caspi et al. show the two interact, which supports combining drug and psychological treatments.

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

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