THE

NATUR
E
VERSUS
Nature vs. nurture
Gender development
◻ The nature-nurture debate is a debate about the
extent to which our behaviour is governed by the
forces of biology and experiences/environment
 Nurture
◻  principles of conditioning, including association,
imitation, and reinforcement.

Nature
•  principles of hereditary.
Nature Nurture

Informal Formal
∙Parents & Society ∙Teachers
∙Experiences ∙Syllabus

Environment Classroom
∙Exposure ∙Systematic
∙Acquisition ∙Learning
 NATURE NURTURE

What is it?: In the "nature vs nurture" In the "nature vs nurture"

debate, nature refers to debate, nurture refers to
an individual's innate personal experiences
qualities (nativism). (i.e. empiricism or
behaviorism).

Example: Nature is your genes. Nurture refers to your

The physical and childhood, or how you
personality traits were brought up.
determined by your Someone could be born
genes stay the same with genes to give them
irrespective of where you a normal height, but be
were born and raised. malnourished in
childhood, resulting in
stunted growth and a
failure to develop as
expected.

Factors: Biological and family Social and environmental

factors factors
Nature

◻ The extreme nature view would suggest that

gender-related behaviour is entirely controlled by
hormonal and genetic factors - gender differences
result from innate differences between female and
male.
◻ This view assumes that women are biologically
programmed to be nurturers and carers, while men
are biologically programmed to be providers and
protectors.
Nature - evaluation
◻ This view is deterministic, stating that our gender
development is mostly influenced by our biology.
◻ This means it ignores important factors such as our
social development, which can be seen in the
changing roles men and women have in society.
◻ The extreme nature side of the debate is unable to
fully explain our gender development.
Nature - evaluation
◻ The nature position is supported by some strong
evidence from lots of studies. The Batista boys show
that even if brought up a girl, if the biology is male
this will be stronger.
◻ The Batista boys were born with female genitals but
at puberty hormonal changes caused their genitals
to change and they became boys and went on to
live happily as men.
◻ This shows that our biology has the greatest
influence on our gender development.
Nurture
◻ The extreme nurture view would suggest that
gender related behaviour is entirely determined by
social and cultural factors – our experiences and the
environment in which we live. Gender differences
result from the different experiences that females
and males have as they develop (learning from
family, peers, society)
Nurture - evaluation
◻ Social learning theory shows how with a mixture of
our environment and our mediating cognitive factors
we have some choice in our gender development.
◻ For example we can choose who our role models
are and if we wish to model our own behaviour on
them
◻ This means it recognises the role the individual plays
in their own gender development.
Nurture - evaluation
◻ The nurture debate is also reductionist as it ignores
the role our biology takes in our gender
development.
◻ For example attempts to bring Brian/Brenda up as
a girl failed as his biology was stronger than the
social environment that he was brought up in.
◻ The nurture debate is too narrow a view to explain
all our gender development.
 language is innate to humans

Chomsky says that humans are 'programmed'

to talk.

Their brains are incredibly large for an animal, yet they still
cannot talk. Scientists experimented with a chimp by raising
it as a child and attempting to teach it to talk in the same
way we do to children, but the experiment failed, proving
not even chimps can speak the way humans do.
B. F. Skinner
◻ language is acquired through principles of
conditioning, including association, imitation, and
reinforcement.

◻ children learn words by associating sounds with

objects, actions, and events.
 Nature Nurture
Anatomy  our bodies being slightly more developed  humans just copy what others
than other animals. do in their environment

Brain sections in the brain dedicated to Animal’s brains aren't advanced

language.  enough to think, just as their
brains aren't advanced enough
the left side of the brain is for language; the for speech, like ours are.
back of the brain for understanding speech;
the front of the brain for speaking and word They communicate their basic
retrieval. needs through either body
language or basic sound.

Genes Gene FoxP2, discovered some years ago,

was found to control speech and around the
mouth area on the face.
  IMPORTANCE OF BOTH NATURE AND
NURTURE IN LANGUAGE 

◻ Humans do have an innate capacity for acquiring the

rules of language.

◻ Children develop language skills through interaction

with others rather than acquire the knowledge
automatically.
Thanks