Intelligence: Learned or Inherited -Nature verses Nurture
INTELLIGENCE: INHERITED OR LEARNED
Nature versus Nurture
Every day, life provides many thought provoking questions and debates such as “Is God real?” or “How was the earth made?” From William Shakespeare in the early 1700’s there was “To be or not to be that is the question-”an internal dilemma “whether tis nobler in the mind (brain) to suffer...or to take arms against the Sea of troubles (environment)” (Shakespeare 4/23/2014). Some three hundred years later in the mid-19th Century, researcher Sir. Francis Galton gave a similar question that was debated “whether intelligence is predominantly the result of heredity (nature) or the environment (nurture)” (Wood, Wood, & Boyd, 2008, pg. 255). Although these particular examples by Shakespeare and Sir. Galton are not related, they share a ring of similarity while stemming from a totally different background. In this study it is important to first understand what is meant by the terms nature and nurture and the definitions within the science of Psychology.
In the field psychology, nature is described as that which has been inherited. Each person is a complex product of a particular gene pool derived from a combination of twenty-three chromosomes from each individual parent for a total of forty-six chromosomes. This grouping of genes determine such traits as hair and eye color, height and even the shape of our nose. This particular gene makeup is also known to play a large role in the ability of each individual to learn. As a result, children from the same family of genes tend to have very similar looks and traits although each has person has their own individual look. In the case of identical twins there is a sharing of one set of forty-six chromosomes to give two individual persons who share almost identical looks and very similar behaviors.
Nurture is described by Psychology as the environment in which a person is exposed to or is allowed to grow and develop. It is the different experiences of
Nature versus Nurture
Every day, life provides many thought provoking questions and debates such as “Is God real?” or “How was the earth made?” From William Shakespeare in the early 1700’s there was “To be or not to be that is the question-”an internal dilemma “whether tis nobler in the mind (brain) to suffer...or to take arms against the Sea of troubles (environment)” (Shakespeare 4/23/2014). Some three hundred years later in the mid-19th Century, researcher Sir. Francis Galton gave a similar question that was debated “whether intelligence is predominantly the result of heredity (nature) or the environment (nurture)” (Wood, Wood, & Boyd, 2008, pg. 255). Although these particular examples by Shakespeare and Sir. Galton are not related, they share a ring of similarity while stemming from a totally different background. In this study it is important to first understand what is meant by the terms nature and nurture and the definitions within the science of Psychology.
In the field psychology, nature is described as that which has been inherited. Each person is a complex product of a particular gene pool derived from a combination of twenty-three chromosomes from each individual parent for a total of forty-six chromosomes. This grouping of genes determine such traits as hair and eye color, height and even the shape of our nose. This particular gene makeup is also known to play a large role in the ability of each individual to learn. As a result, children from the same family of genes tend to have very similar looks and traits although each has person has their own individual look. In the case of identical twins there is a sharing of one set of forty-six chromosomes to give two individual persons who share almost identical looks and very similar behaviors.
Nurture is described by Psychology as the environment in which a person is exposed to or is allowed to grow and develop. It is the different experiences of
References: Bouchard Jr., T.J., Lykken, D.T., McGue, M., Segal, N.L., Tellegen, A. (1990, October 12) [PDF] Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, Science 250, pages 223-228 http://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/1000H/Bouchard.pdf Ramey, C.T., Ramey, S.L. (2004) [PDF] Early Learning and School Readiness: Can Early Intervention Make a Difference? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 50, pages 471-491 http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/423-ramey04.pdf Shakespeare, William, To be, or not to be, n.d. retrieved 4/23/2014, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_be,_or_not_to_be Wood, S.E., Wood, E.G., & Boyd, D. (2008) The World of Psychology (6th edition) Boston, MA, Pearson Education Inc., pages 255-258