Rate the extent to which you believe nature and nature influence cause human intelligence. As you learn more about the theory and research on genetic and environmental influences on human intelligence, you may find that you change some of your beliefs and assumptions.
Rate the extent to which you believe nature and nature influence cause human intelligence. As you learn more about the theory and research on genetic and environmental influences on human intelligence, you may find that you change some of Is intelligence nature or nurture beliefs and assumptions.
Pendulum of opinion on Nature vs. Nurture through history The zeitgeist the intellectual and culture "flavor" of a time and place has swung back and forth over time with regard to the amount of influence that nature vs. To be more precise, the modern view about nature vs nurture in intelligence is "interactionist".
This view is well expressed by Ridleyp. This was consistent with the scientific discoveries of the role of inheritance and natural selection by Mendel and Darwin. The major contributor to the psychological argument was Francis Galton in his book "Hereditary Genius: Galton had observed that the gifted individuals tended to come from families which had other gifted individuals.
He went on to analyze biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias, and became convinced that talent in science, the professions, and the arts, ran in families. Galton took this observation one step further, to argue that it would be "quite practicable to produce a high gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations".
This suggestion became know as eugenics, "the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or repair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.
Galton was convinced that "intelligence must be bred, not trained". Such arguments have had massive social consequences and have been used to support apartheid policies, sterilization programs, and other acts of withholding basic human rights from minority groups.
This began to challenge the commonly held view that intelligence was directly, genetically linked to racial differences: Evidence now seemed to support a closer link between social class and intelligence, rather than race and intelligence. As a result, a number of psychologists in the s and s shifted their position towards the environmental camp.
Nevertheless, social prejudices and inequalities were still evident and growing. Efforts were made to arrest poor educational achievement through special schooling, and to alleviate poor living conditions through welfare.
The evidence of differences in intelligence between socioeconomic groups and racial groups, however, did not go away. It was suggested that SES successes and failures are largely genetically caused.
The Bell Curve" re-ignited the nature-nurture debate. The public debate was and is divided. Further to this were the suggestions made by Herrnstein and Murray about the implications of a predominantly genetically-inherited intelligence for public and social policy. Since IQ was largely seen as genetically determined, the authors expressed resistance to educational and environmental interventions.
They argued that money spent in this way is wasted. It was just an assumption of the practitioners.
Today that is no longer the case. The heritability of IQ whatever IQ is! The results really are quite startling. No study of the causes of intelligence has failed to find a certain and often substantial heritability. What varies from study to study is the amount that can be attributed to heritability.
Concordance rates of IQ scores Evidence from family studies provides the main supporting evidence from which arguments about the relative roles of genetics and environment are constructed.Skip To Content.
Dashboard. Login. Skip To Content. Dashboard. Login. It is often debated whether intelligence is significantly influenced by a person's environment or their genes. Now, a study has shown that intelligence is a product of nurture as well as nature.
Pendulum of opinion on Nature vs.
Nurture through history. The zeitgeist (the intellectual and culture "flavor" of a time and place) has swung back and forth over time with regard to the amount of influence that nature vs. nature has on human intelligence. Nature vs Nurture - What do you think? In looking for the causes of individual differences in intelligence, a major issue is the relative contribution of genetics and environment.
The nature versus nurture debate involves whether human behaviour is determined by the environment, either prenatal or during a person's life, or by a person's genes. Early studies of intelligence, which mostly examined young children, found that heritability measured 40–50%.