preview

Nuture Nature Vs Nurture

Decent Essays

TWINS AND THE NATURE-NURTURE OF INTELLIGENCE: Intelligence is defined by psychologists as “the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (Dr. C. George Boeree 2003). It is an interesting aspect of the human being that psychologists try to understand in terms of the various factors that influence it. The variation in the level of intelligence in human beings is scored using the IQ. It is evaluated across a spectrum of perspectives ranging from biological, psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, humanism and behaviorism. But the most debated is how nature and nurture influence intelligence. Nature follows with a biological approach focusing on genetic, hormonal and neuro-chemical explanations of behavior that are acquired, while nurture focuses on all behavior learnt from the environment through conditioning. “Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the product of exposure, experience and learning on an individual” (Saul McLeod , 2007). How nature or nurture influence intelligence or which of them is more influential, is highly studied psychologists. Such studies have been attempted by using twins by isolating from their siblings, and evaluating whether genetic or environmental factors has influence on their intelligence. In their use, identical (monozygote) twins are separated and made to grow in different environmental conditions such as socioeconomic status, parents’ behavior, alcoholism, criminal behavior, emotional adaptation and nutrition while non-identical twins are used as controls. This is done by testing their IQ. (Nature vs Nurture in Intelligence, 2005) The influence of nature on genetic is easily studied using heritability or traits that are considered inherited, including intelligence. Psychologists try to compare the influence of heritability and the environment by taking advantage of the idea that monozygotic twins share 100 percent of their genes while dizygotic twins share 50 percent. Consequently identical twins are expected to display the same

Get Access