Is Human Intelligence Inborn Or Can It Be Taught?

Is intelligence inborn or can it be taught?

Is human intelligence linked to very important innate fascinating genetic aspects or to external socio-cultural factors?

Source: Boundless. “Genetic and Environmental Impacts on Intelligence.” Boundless, 08 Oct. 2014. Retrieved 22 Nov. 2014 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/intelligence

Nature and Nurture both influence Intelligence, which in turn impacts on human behaviour. There are various aspects of behaviour, which are a result of either biological (inherited) or learned (acquired) characteristics.

Nativism in psychological theory refers to knowledge of the world and is mostly hereditary. (Descartes Gross 5th Edition p901).This particular

As considered by John Locke, an extreme Empiricist, the human brain is a "blank slate" that could be trained and coached to acquire anything, if educated in a suitable fashion. However, on the contrary to this opinion, an increasing number of researchers and psychologists now consider that the reverse is true; that is, persons are born with and retain diverse levels of capability. The growth and use of intelligence tests have been one approach that scholars and psychologists have attempted to support their difference of opinions. Gardner (1993) conveys this vision rather sophisticatedly, stating that "there exists a multitude of intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the brain is far from imaginative at birth; and that it is unbelievably challenging to teach things at that early stage of

The concept of behaviourism is a combination of social experience, regular interaction, and operant (constant) conditioning (Skinner, 1957). It can be concluded that, in Skinner’s philosophy, learning is the product of discoveries of external sources, developed by demonstration and practice. The implications of Skinner’s theory were that the inner processes that take place during learning by social exposure are old-fashioned. Skinner reinforced his behaviourist ideas with the hypothetical interpretations that were common at the time, yet, the conclusions were not practically supported by an adequate amount of research. For example, Skinner established that the experiments performed on the way animals acquire behaviours is sufficient evidence to support his operant conditioning theory; as long as there is plentiful input and training the learning will be developed. (Skinner, 1957). This model applied to language learning in the same manner. Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour proposed the linguistic community hypotheses that involved distinguishing variables that influence behaviours, the analysis on how they interact with the individual character, and the concept that reinforcement, stimulus, and adequate experience are the channels for achieving command of