Maturation was a term developed 70 years ago by Gesell (1925). It is used to describe genetically programmed sequential patterns. E.g., babies will develop at different rates like walking but all people share sequences through life. Maturation has three qualities. Firstly universal, which appears in all children throughout different cultures. Secondly sequential a temporal form of patterned characteristics and is relatively impervious to environmental influence. It is a developmental process occurring without any training, e.g., homosexuality. The nurture theory of homosexuality focuses on parent-child relationships in the first few years of life.
A psychoanalytic explanation is that every child moves to the parent who is the opposite sex and the frustration of that desire leads the child to turn to the same sex parent. This “Oedipal resolution” usually occurs around the age of four. It is thought by psychoanalysis that it is this point of development that goes wrong with homosexuals.
Emotions such as aggression play a significant role in the development of children. At the age of 2-3 years when the child becomes upset or angry they are more likely to throw things around, however as their language develops they tend to use more verbal aggression. Aggression can be an innate emotion, as nature can provide us with the potential to be aggressive. However nurture can determine when, how and to what extent we are aggressive. E.g. the media plays a role in aggression. If children are watching violent television programmes it may promote violence by imitation. Strayer (1980) showed that children between the ages of 3-4 put themselves into groups. Those who are leaders and those who stand back and follow. He calls this “dominance hierarchies”. This may cause less physical aggression, as the child will know who will win in a fight and who will lose, therefore knowing which ones they will fight and the ones they won’t. (Bee, H, 1995 pg., 296) By the age of 4-5 children will spend up to 20 percent of their time in this complicated pretend play (Field, De Stefano, & Koewler 1982)
Like animals humans form strong bonds with their parents called an attachment bond. In the early 1940’s John Bowlby carried out the first investigation of these. He believed that for a child to develop mentally there must be a worthy bond between the child and parent. The most successful way of looking into a child’s emotional development would be to carry out investigations on children who had not formed attachments with their mothers due to separation. Children have a biological instinct to form an attachment. Babies will use genetically inherited skills such as smiling or crying to gain their mother’s attention. (Davenport G.C pg., 8).
He looked into 44 juveniles, 39 percent of whom had being separated from their mothers for six months or more before the age of five. He found that maternal separation caused major emotional disruption in the child’s attachments, concluding that maternal deprivation leads to delinquency. Delinquent children have no shame for other people or the crimes their committing. Bowlby calls them “affectionless psychopaths”.
On the social side of a child’s development some are shy and reserved others are outgoing. Innate temperament could play a role in this. However it may also be the surroundings that the child was brought up in, such as parental control, children who have clear rules are more confident, and less aggressive (Patterson 1980). The best outcome for a child is when the parent explains when they have done something wrong and does not use physical punishment. Children go through a process of learning when to express an emotion. For example, the social smile. This usually occurs around the age of 3 years old. It is where the child has to show he/ she is happy even if they are not. This is most likely learnt through nurture. A child knows when it is appropriate to smile, fitting into what society redeems to be good and bad. Albert Bandura (1925) a social psychologist, carried out studies on children who imitate others behaviour. He believes that most of our behaviour is learnt. An example is the “Bobo doll”. Nursery school children were asked to watch some short films, each had a different ending. The children would see an adult attacking the inflatable doll. He would sit on it, punch it, kick it and shout things at the doll. In one film the adult was rewarded for his behaviour, in the second one punished, in the third there was no punishment or reward. The children were then given a chance to play with the dolls and objects were available to them such as a mallet that was used in the films. Children who had seen the adult being rewarded each committed on average two and half more aggressive acts out on the doll than those who saw no punishment. Those who saw the adult being punished on average carried out one and a half time less aggressive acts
Intelligence is a significant part of child’s development. Charles Darwin the nineteenth Century naturalist believed that differences between species were a result of their genotypes, including differences in intelligence. Case studies of identical twins provide evidence of heredity and nurture.
There are two types of twins, identical and fraternal. A fertilised egg is called a zygote; fraternal twins are dizygotic twins (DZ), identical twins monozygote (MZ) each carry the same genes. If the IQs of DZ twins who share the same environment are similar we could say the environment largely determines that intelligence. If those who have identical heredity but different environments e.g., adoptive MZ twins have similar IQs we could say that it is mainly genetically acquired. An idea that supports the view that intelligence is innate is that a small number of identical twins raised separately each have a high correlation of intelligence, but those separated often had similar homes and culture. For example, two thirds of the twins in the Shields et al study were actually raised by the same family. (http://www.mugsy.org/shields3.html)
If intelligence were a result of environment then it would mean children living in poverty would not have a very high IQ. An enriched environment promotes intelligence.
Skeels and Dye carried out a number of studies on children whose environment had changed. They used a state orphanage in America, where the children with learning difficulties were put in a special institution. One child had an IQ of 35 and the other of 46. A few months later they were retested and a dramatic change occurred. One child’s IQ went up to 87 and the other to 77. Skeels claimed that it was other children and the staff who mothered them that promoted their IQ, by giving them lots of attention and stimulation (Davenport G.C. 1996, pg.213). This supports the nurture view in social development.(http://www.commonname.com/en/Powersearch.asp?ekw=AgMSHAAdRyoVTkWWOE=&app=7)
Kohlberg & Elfenbein (1975) used the example of a woman who was dying of cancer to understand the moral development of children. A pharmacist was selling drugs for $2000, but he would not sell them any cheaper despite knowing the woman was going to die. Her husband then broke into the shop and stole the drug to save his wife’s life. After the children heard the story they were then asked a series of questions such as should the husband have stolen the drug? Or if the person who was dying was a stranger, should he still have stolen the drug? Preconventional morality may take place depending on the stage of the child’s development where judgement is based on either external surroundings such as a person in authority (nurture) or internally (nature).
The sequence in learning language begins with crying moving on to cooing, babbling, and the first words such as “mummy” and finally two word sentences. Factors that affect their language are things such as talking to the children, listening to their surroundings, reinforcement and practice, all of which support the nurture side of the debate (Cross, W, Vennis, D, 1996). Children will learn to speak with the accent of their parents. The children that are more willing to imitate their parents speech are the ones who have the fastest vocabulary development between the first and second year what Masur (1995) called the learning explosion. Skinner 1957 argued for reinforcement. He believed that parents reward their child for speech nearing adult standard. However Skinners theory may not be entirely true. Researchers have found that parents reward their child on whether a sentence is true rather than correct. Children whose parents read to their child and use a wide range of vocabulary often learn to read far more easily when they are in school. Snow, (1997) believed that children of the age of four that were raised within poverty used less complex sentences. (Bee, H 1995). Supporting the nurture side of the debate.
Alternatively some people will argue for the nature side of the argument and believe that innateness plays a part in a child’s language development. Children do make up their own language such as “dadda” therefore imitation can not play the whole part. Dan Slobin (1985a; 1985b) believes that a child is born with basic language making capacity. Children are programmed to rules that are to be listened to. Melissa Bowerman stated “When language starts to come in, it does not introduce new meanings to the child. Rather it is used to express only those meanings the child has already formulated independently of language” (Bee, H 1995). E.g. it is the child who initiates verbal exchanges. (Bloom 1997). Thus both nature and nurture interact to produce a child’s language. A child could have operating principles embedded in a basic language making capacity, but reinforcement from parents e.g. motherese encourages the child and helps language to develop at a quicker rate.
Physical development is how children grow and learn physical skills. Children’s height is usually a case of heredity. Tall parents are more likely to have tall children. However this is not always the case. Children can be taller if their family is wealthy and educated e.g. their mother did not smoke during pregnancy. They tend to be smaller if their family is poor. Needlman (1996) Children begin to develop gross motor skills such as running and fine motor skills such as writing at 18 months and 6 years respectively. These skills support the nature argument, as it is possible to say that the brain development plays a major role in this co-ordination. However it may also be the support of parents that encourage the child’s practice in these areas. Illnesses in children such as asthma also question the nature/nurture debate. Asthma is a dry cough, tightness in the chest and wheezing. On one hand it can be inherited through genes, although according to Crain, Weiss, Bijur et al (1994) it could also be caused due to living in poverty or crowded conditions.
In conclusion the nature/ nurture debate is one that will never be resolved as people are use different features for their arguments. On one-hand theorists, scientists and the public argue that nature and innateness is what helps child’s development. Others may argue that it is nurture that plays the role such as imitation of speech of their parents, the home in which they live, whether they are living in poverty or wealth. The two approaches are linked it is both nature and nurture that influences the child’s development. The balance varies depending on the situation of particular children, e.g. poverty. Although the child may have innate basic instincts and drives for things such as learning, language, aggression or morality. It is also the environment that plays a major role. There is interaction between nature and nurture.
References
Bee, H., (1999) The Growing Child An Applied Approach Second Ed. Longman. Harlow, England.
Bloom, L. (1997, April). The Child’s Action Drives the Interaction. Paper presented at the biennial meetings of the society for research in Child Development. Washington, DC.
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Davenport, G.G. (1996) An Introduction to Child Development second Ed. CollinsEducational. London.
Field, T.M., De Stefano, L., & Koewler, J. H. I (1982). Fantasy play of toddlers and preschoolers. Developmental Psychology, Vol. 18, pg. 503-508.
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Patterson, G.R. (1980). Mothers: The unacknowledged victims. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. Vol. 45 (186).
Strayer, F.F. (1980). Social ecology of the preschool peergroup. In A. Collins (Ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology, Vol. 13, pg. 165-196. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlba.
Joanne Turner 9 May, 2007
