Concept of Development

 The Concept of “Development” The term “development” is generally used to refer to the dynamic
process by which an individual grows and changes throughout its life-span.

 It is often thought of as the process of qualitative change taking place from conception to death.

 In this way development is a broad term and deals with all areas including physical, motor,
cognitive, physiological, social, emotional and personality.

 For example, a 13 year-old girl undergoes physical and biological changes in her body and such changes are
in turn related to her mental, social and emotional development.

 Development is shaped by the joint influences of both nature and nurture in a cultural context.

 Nature refers to the hereditary contribution a child receives from parents at the time of conception.
Genetics determines several aspects of a person’s physical structure and functioning as well as some psychological
characteristics to a certain extent.

 Nurture refers to the influences of the complex physical and social ecology in which we develop and grow.
Various aspects of the child’s ecology (e.g. physical facilities, social institutions and rituals, and school) influence
the developmental outcomes in important ways.
Characteristics of Development

 Development is a life-long process, spanning from conception till death.

 Developmental changes are often systematic, progressive and orderly. They usually follow a pattern,
proceeding from general to specific, and from simple to complex and integrated levels of functioning.

 Development is multi-directional, i.e. some areas may show a sharp increase while other areas may show a
decline. Developmental changes usually involve an increase in maturity towards higher levels of functioning, e.g.
increase in vocabulary’s size and complexity. But it may also involve a decrease or loss, such as in bone density or
memory in old age.

 Developmental changes can be quantitative, e.g. increase in height with age, or qualitative, e.g. formation
of moral values.

 Development is both continuous as well as discontinuous process. Some changes may occur very rapidly
and be overtly visible, such as appearance of the first tooth, while some changes may not be sharp enough to be
observed easily in day-to-day functioning, such as understanding of grammar.

 Developmental changes are multi-dimensional and inter-related. They may happen together in many
areas at a time, or can occur one at a time. During adolescence there are rapid changes in the body as well as in
emotional, social and cognitive functioning.

 Development is highly plastic or flexible. This means that the same person may suddenly show greater
improvement in a particular area than expected from the past rate of development. An enriched environment can
produce unexpected changes in the physical strength, or in memory and intelligence levels.

 Development is contextual. It is influenced by historical, environmental and socio-cultural factors. The loss
of a parent, an accident, a war, an earthquake and child-rearing customs are examples of factors which may
influence development.
Question: Explain the role of genetic and environmental factors in determining
human behavior?
Nativism (Extreme Nature Position)

It has long been known that certain physical characteristics are biologically determined by genetic
inheritance.

Color of eyes, straight or curly hair, pigmentation of the skin and certain diseases (such as Huntingdon’s
chorea) are all a function of the genes we inherit.

These facts have led many to speculate as to whether psychological characteristics such as behavioral
tendencies, personality attributes, and mental abilities are also “wired in” before we are even born.

Those who adopt an extreme hereditary position are known as nativists. Their basic assumption is that
the characteristics of the human species as a whole are a product of evolution and that individual
difference are due to each person’s unique genetic code.

In general, the earlier a particular ability appears, the more likely it is to be under the influence ofgenetic
factors. Estimates of genetic influence are called heritability.

Examples of an extreme nature positions in psychology include Chomsky (1965), who proposed
language is gained through the use of an innate language acquisition device. Another example of nature
is Freud's theory of aggression as being an innate drive (called Thanatos).

Characteristics and differences that are not observable at birth, but which emerge later in life, are
regarded as the product of maturation. That is to say, we all have an inner “biological clock” which

switches on (or off) types of behavior in a pre-programmed way.

The classic example of the way this affects our physical development are the bodily changes that occur in
early adolescence at puberty. However, nativists also argue that maturation governs the emergence of
attachment in infancy, language acquisition and even cognitive development as a whole.
Empiricism (Extreme Nurture Position)

At the other end of the spectrum are the environmentalists – also known as empiricists (not to be
confused with the other empirical / scientific approach).

Their basic assumption is that at birth the human mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) and that this is
gradually “filled” as a result of experience (e.g., Behaviorism).

From this point of view, psychological characteristics and behavioral differences that emerge through
infancy and childhood are the results of learning. It is how you are brought up (nurture) that governs
the psychologically significant aspects of child development and the concept of maturation applies only
to the biological.

For example, Bandura's social learning theory states that aggression is learned from the environment
through observation and imitation. This is seen in his famous Bobo doll experiment(Bandura, 1961).
Also, Skinner (1957) believed that language is learnt from other people via behavior shaping techniques.

Freud (1905) stated that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives, shaping our
personality. He thought that parenting is of primary importance to a child's development, and the family
as the most important feature of nurture was a common theme throughout twentieth-century
psychology (which was dominated by environmental theories).

Behavioral Genetics

Researchers in the field of behavioral genetics study variation in behavior as it is affected by genes,which
are the units of heredity passed down from parents to offspring.

“We now know that DNA differences are the major systematic source of psychological differences
between us. Environmental effects are important but what we have learned in recent years is that
they are mostly random – unsystematic and unstable – which means that we cannot do much
about them.” ……Plomin.

Behavioral genetics has enabled psychology to quantify the relative contribution of nature and nurture
with regard to specific psychological traits. One way to do this is to study relatives who share the same
genes (nature) but a different environment (nurture). Adoption acts as a natural experiment which
allows researchers to do this.

Empirical studies have consistently shown that adoptive children show greater resemblance to their
biological parents, rather than their adoptive, or environmental parents (Plomin & DeFries, 1983; 1985).

Another way of studying heredity is by comparing the behavior of twins, who can either be identical
(sharing the same genes) or non-identical (sharing 50% of genes). Like adoption studies, twin studies
support the first rule of behavior genetics; that psychological traits are extremely heritable, about 50%on
average.
The Twins in Early Development Study (TEDS) revealed correlations between twins on a range of
behavioral traits, such as personality (empathy and hyperactivity) and components of reading such as
phonetics (Haworth, Davis, Plomin, 2013; Oliver & Plomin, 2007; Trouton, Spinath, & Plomin, 2002).

Implications

Jenson (1969) found that the average I.Q. scores of black Americans were significantly lower than whites
he went on to argue that genetic factors were mainly responsible – even going so far as to suggest that
intelligence is 80% inherited.

The storm of controversy that developed around Jenson’s claims was not mainly due to logical and
empirical weaknesses in his argument. It was more to do with the social and political implications that are often
drawn from research that claims to demonstrate natural inequalities between social groups.

For many environmentalists, there is a barely disguised right-wing agenda behind the work of the
behavioral geneticists. In their view, part of the difference in the I.Q. scores of different ethnic groups
are due to inbuilt biases in the methods of testing.

More fundamentally, they believe that differences in intellectual ability are a product of social
inequalities in access to material resources and opportunities. To put it simply children brought up inthe
ghetto tend to score lower on tests because they are denied the same life chances as more privileged
members of society.

Now we can see why the nature-nurture debate has become such a hotly contested issue. What begins
as an attempt to understand the causes of behavioral differences often develops into a politically
motivated dispute about distributive justice and power in society.

What’s more, this doesn’t only apply to the debate over I.Q. It is equally relevant to the psychology of
sex and gender, where the question of how much of the (alleged) differences in male and female
behavior is due to biology and how much to culture is just as controversial.
Polygenic Inheritance

Rather than the presence or absence of single genes being the determining factor that accounts for
psychological traits, behavioral genetics has demonstrated that multiple genes – often thousands,
collectively contribute to specific behaviors.

Thus, psychological traits follow a polygenic mode of inheritance (as opposed to being determined by a
single gene). Depression is a good example of a polygenic trait, which is thought to be influenced by
around 1000 genes (Plomin, 2018).

This means a person with a lower number of these genes (under 500) would have a lower risk of
experiencing depression than someone with a higher number.

The Nature of Nurture

Nurture assumes that correlations between environmental factors and psychological outcomes are
caused environmentally. For example, how much parents read with their children and how well children
learn to read appear to be related. Other examples include environmental stress and its effect on
depression.

However, behavioral genetics argues that what look like environmental effects are to a large extent

really a reflection of genetic differences (Plomin & Bergeman, 1991).

People select, modify and create environments correlated with their genetic disposition. This means that
what sometimes appears to be an environmental influence (nurture) is a genetic influence (nature).

So, children that are genetically predisposed to be competent readers, will be happy to listen to their
parents read them stories, and be more likely to encourage this interaction.
Interaction Effects

However, in recent years there has been a growing realization that the question of “how much” behavior
is due to heredity and “how much” to the environment may itself be the wrong question.

Take intelligence as an example. Like almost all types of human behavior, it is a complex, many-sided
phenomenon which reveals itself (or not!) in a great variety of ways.

The “how much” question assumes that psychological traits can all be expressed numerically and thatthe
issue can be resolved in a quantitative manner.

Heritability statistics revealed by behavioral genetic studies have been criticized as meaningless, mainly
because biologists have established that genes cannot influence development independently of
environmental factors; genetic and nongenetic factors always cooperate to build traits. The reality is that
nature and culture interact in a host of qualitatively different ways (Gottlieb, 2007; Johnston & Edwards,
2002).

Instead of defending extreme nativist or nurturist views, most psychological researchers are now
interested in investigating how nature and nurture interact.

For example, in psychopathology, this means that both a genetic predisposition and an appropriate
environmental trigger are required for a mental disorder to develop. For example, epigenetics state that
environmental influences affect the expression of genes.
Therefore, it makes more sense to say that the difference between two people’s behavior is mostly due to
hereditary factors or mostly due to environmental factors.

This realization is especially important given the recent advances in genetics, such as polygenic testing. The Human
Genome Project, for example, has stimulated enormous interest in tracing types of behavior to particular strands of
DNA located on specific chromosomes.

If these advances are not to be abused, then there will need to be a more general understanding of the fact that
biology interacts with both the cultural context and the personal choices that people make about how they want to
live their lives.

There is no neat and simple way of unraveling these qualitatively different and reciprocal influences on human
behavior.