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Nature Vs Nurture Research Paper

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The Nature Versus Nurture Debate in Intelligence

The nature versus nurture debate has been playing out for more than two hundred years. Sir. Francis Galton believed intelligence was innate, that we are born with it. John Locke an English philosopher believed that we learn through experience. In his essay, "Concerning Human Understanding", he wrote that a child is born with a blank slate, "tabula rasa", where knowledge is acquired through experience. (Locke J. (1689) Concerning Human Understanding). These contrasting ideas can be seen to go further back in history to that of Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Plato believed, "intellect takes form of the psyche", it is part of nature and therefore biological, while Aristotle believed that, "knowledge was gained through the senses". (Maltby J., Day L., Macaskill A (2013) Personality Individual Difference and Intelligence. Pearson, Pg. 279). In this essay I will talk about what I have researched and give an overview of the nature versus nurture debate …show more content…

They believe that the nature aspect of intelligence refers to the fact we are born with our intellectual quota or component already. That it is inherited from our parents through the gene pool. The earlier an ability is seen it is more likely to be influenced by genes. Characteristics that are not

observable at birth and develop later in life are seen as a product of maturation. That is to say that we have a biological clock that switches on or off behaviour in a pre- programmed way". (Mc Leod S. 2015, Nature vs Nurture in Psychology 8)

On the other side of the debate those who believe in the nature side are called environmentalists. They believe that we are born with as John Locke called it, a blank slate, "tabula rasa" in where we learn from our environment. (Mc Leod S. (2015) Nature vs. Nurture 9). We learn from our parents, siblings our peers and the rest of the world around

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