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Nature and Nurture

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 Nature and Nurture
Dianna T. Kenny
Carol Jones (Ed). Readers’ Guide to the Social Sciences Volume 1, pp 1105-1106. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers
The nature-nurture debate goes by several names
that are often used interchangeably in different sub-
disciplines of psychology. These are nativism-em-
piricism (perception); maturation versus learning
(developmental psychology); heredity versus en-
vironment (individual differences). Francis Galton
began the nature-nurture debate when he referred
to genes and environment as the two sources of
individual differences in his study of giftedness
(Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and
Consequences, 1869). Until recently, the debate has
remained rooted in the discipline of psychology
and was dominated by environmentalism through
the influence of behaviourism and learning theory.
However, with critical discoveries in molecular bi-
ology and genetics, made possible by the advent of
sophisticated technologies, the new interdisciplinary
fields of behavioural genetics and genetic epidemi-
ology have emerged, and the importance of genetic
contributions to development are becoming increas-
ingly apparent. New challenges to accepted wisdom
in the nature-nurture debate have grown apace since
the 1960s, as the texts reviewed below will show.
Most recent writing in the area views genes and
environment as interdependent, recognising that
genetic expression is always environmentally me-
diated and that genotypes moderate the effects of
experience.
Plomin, Robert, and McClearn, Gerald E. (Eds).
Nature, Nurture and Psychology. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association, 1993.
Nature, Nurture and Psychology contains 24
chapters from eminent researchers in the field of
developmental psychology and behavioural genet-
ics. It begins with a brief historical exploration of
the origin of the nature-nurture debate, followed by
a discussion of the different questions this debate
raises in each of the three main areas of inquiry:
personality, cognitive ability, and psychopathology
(focusing on depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism,
autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
It concludes with a discussion of the role that be-
havioural genetics and new experimental paradigms
will play in future research. Although dealing with
difficult and complex issues, it is a very readable
D.T. Kenny
book, and provides an excellent overview of the key
issues in the current debate.
Archives of General Psychiatry, 52/11, (1995). Pub-
lication of the American Medical Association.
This issue contains three articles and a commen-
tary on the genetic epidemiology of psychiatric ill-
ness. Each article examines key questions related to
the role of development, gene-environment interac-
tion, and the familial environment in the aetiology
of behavioural (aggression, anti-social behaviour,
conduct disorder) and emotional disorders (major
depression). The most intriguing article by Reiss et
al, addresses the impact of differential parenting ie
the differences in the ways in which parents treat
their children on depression and antisocial behav-
iour. They conclude that parents treat their children
similarly in the area of monitoring-control, but quite
differently in conflict-negativity and warmth-sup-
port. They conclude that families are important for
mental health, but that the influence derives from
the unique features of individual parent-child rela-
tionships rather than in some generic familial envi-
ronment.
Magnusson, D. (Ed). The Lifespan Development
of Individuals: Behavioural, Neurobiological, and
Psychosocial Perspectives. Cambridge University
Press, 1996.
This book contains a number of chapters of direct
relevance to the nature-nurture debate. It is interest-
ing because the issues are examined from a lifespan
perspective. The first of these chapters, Genes and
Environment (John C Loehlin) summarises the ma-
jor findings from twin and adoption studies and syn-
thesises them into succinct summaries. For intel-
ligence, the message is that genes do not contribute
much early in the lifespan but become increasingly
important as people develop. The reverse effect is
true of the environment. For personality, the moder-
ate genetic influence on individual differences peaks
in young adulthood and remains stable until late in
life. The influence of shared family environment de-
creases over time until late adolescence. Gottlieb,
in his chapter A systems View of Psychobiological
Development, offers a four tiered model involving
Nature and Nurture 51
genetic, neural, behavioural, and environmental in-
fluences with bidirectional effects between each of
the tiers. In their chapter, Cognitive Development,
Weinert and Perner are concerned with what and in
which form, knowledge is innately specified. Bel-
lugi et al examine the question using clues from ge-
netically based syndromes; while Klein examines
the genetically and socially transmitted knowledge
related to language development. The final section
of the book, Biology and Socialisation, offers fas-
cinating insights into brain – behaviour, biology -
culture relationships.
Neisser, Ulric, Boodoo, Gwyneth, Bouchard, Tho-
mas, et al. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns.
American Psychologist, 51/2, (1996): 77[-]101
The nature-nurture debate as it relates to intelli-
gence has been the most controversial and political
of the three psychological domains to which this de-
bate pertains because of the implications associated
with any findings related to racial differences in IQ
scores. This debate was ignited anew by the publi-
cation of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class in
American Life by Hernstein and Murray in 1994. In
response to the public furore created by this book,
the American Psychological Association set up a
task force to provide an impartial, scientific report
on the nature of intelligence. This excellent report
first discusses the current conceptualisations of in-
telligence and then guides the reader through the
complex maze of evidence related to both the genet-
ic and environmental contributions to scores on IQ
tests. This is followed by an analysis of the possi-
ble causes of differences in mean scores on IQ tests
among different ethnic groups (Asian, Hispanic, and
African Americans). A related paper on which much
of the current race-IQ relationship debate is based is
summarised in Flynn, James. Searching for Justice:
The Discovery of IQ gains over Time. American
Psychologist, 54/1, (1999): 5-20.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol 6,
Number 4: A Journal of the American Psychologi-
cal Society. Cambridge University Press, 1997
This volume of Current Directions describes new
research, using genetically sensitive strategies and
methods in behavioural genetics, that unravels the
nature/nurture puzzle in three domains: person-
ality (see Saudino and Hamer) psychopathology
(see Eley; Reiss; Boomsa, Anokhin, & de Geus)
and cognitive abilities (see Petrill). Saudino chal-
lenges the accepted wisdom on the role of genet-
ics in personality in three ways. Firstly, she argues
that parental rating biases of identical and fraternal
D.T. Kenny
twins and siblings have resulted in an overestimate
of genetic influence on the heritability of person-
ality. Secondly, genetic factors may contribute to
both situational variations in personality as well as
to stability or continuity across situations. Thirdly,
genetically influenced personality factors affect
how people select, construct, or perceive their envi-
ronments. That is, personality mediates the genetic
contribution to environmental measures. Eley dem-
onstrates the shared genetic influences on both in-
ternalising (ie anxiety and depression) and external-
ising (ie antisocial aggressive and non-aggressive
behaviours) disorders in children. Petrill highlights
the importance of genetic determinants of variance
in cognitive ability across the lifespan, arguing that
genetic evidence points to molarity, while the non-
shared, individually experienced environment un-
derpins modularity in cognitive function. Similarly,
Reiss provides strong evidence of the importance of
nongenetic, nonshared environmental influences on
development. Boomsa addresses the relationships
between genes, brain and behaviour by exploring
the individual differences in brain electrical activity,
the extent to which these differences are heritable,
and the genetic risk associated with disorders such
as schizophrenia and alcoholism. Finally, Hamer, a
molecular biologist, searches for personality genes
through linkage analysis that may contribute to di-
verse behavioural manifestations such as homosex-
uality and novelty seeking.
Plomin, Robert, and Petrill, Stephen, A. “Genetics
and Intelligence: What’s new?” Intelligence, 24 /1,
(1997): 53[-]77
Early genetic research focused on discovering the
relative contributions of nature and nurture on intel-
ligence. This research has concluded that there is
strong evidence for the genetic influence on indi-
vidual differences in intelligence, with heritability
estimates averaging at about 50%. Research has
now moved into new areas, investigating issues
related to change and continuity in intelligence
throughout the lifespan, associations among differ-
ent cognitive abilities, and the identification of spe-
cific genes that may be responsible for both cogni-
tive abilities and disabilities. This paper provides an
exciting review of recent research and its findings.
For example, using developmental genetic analysis,
researchers have found that the genetic influence on
intelligence increases with increasing age, doubling
from about 40% in childhood to 80% in later life.
Plomin and Petrill argue that “genetic dispositions
nudge us towards environments that accentuate our
genetic properties, thus leading to increased herit-
Nature and Nurture 52
 ability throughout the lifespan (p 60).” For a more
detailed discussion, see Petrill, Stephen, Plomin,
Robert, Berg, Stig, et al. The Genetic and Environ-
mental Relationship between General and Specific
Cognitive Abilities in Twins age 80 and Older. Psy-
chological Science, 9/3, (1998): 183[-]189.

D.T. Kenny Nature and Nurture 53

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