Nature Vs Nurture Mcleod Analysis

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Critical Analysis Saul McLeod discusses nature versus nurture in his article “Nature Versus Nurture in Psychology.” McLeod describes the theory of nature versus nurture and important psychologists, states the history behind the theories, and mentions recent ideas and theories pertaining to nature versus nurture. With McLeod’s wide coverage and depth, he displays a good range in knowledge of the topic and produces an informative article. McLeod first states that the debate of nature versus nurture focuses on environment and genes and then describes each: “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 …show more content…

The main question asked is “how much” behavior is due to heredity and “how much” to the environment” (McLeod 1). However, McLeod proposes that this idea is incorrect because of complexity—saying there are many variables, which are not all the same, composed heredity and environment. “The ‘how much’ question assumes that the variables can all be expressed numerically and that the issue can be resolved in a quantitative manner. The reality is that nature and culture interact in a host of qualitatively different ways” (McLeod 1). He then address the current consensus for the debate of nature versus nurture; the idea that nature and nurture do not work separately mostly accepted and psychologists aim to focus on observing how nature and nurture work together (1). McLeod displays a fair amount of knowledge on nature versus nurture in his article “Nature Versus Nurture in Psychology.” He discusses what nature and nurture is in depth, important psychologist and theories, and recent ideas and theories pertaining to nature versus nurture; because of how in depth McLeod discusses the topic, he most likely did the research necessary for the article in order to apply the theories, propose his own ideas, and produce an informative