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Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the relative influence on human beings of their genetic inheritance (nature) and the environmental conditions of their development .
Developmental psychology examines the influences of nature and nurture on the process of human development, as well as processes of change in context across time. Many researchers are interested in the interactions among personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors , including the social context and the built ...
Twin and adoption studies have provided much of the evidence for gene–environment correlations by demonstrating that putative environmental measures are heritable. [5] For example, studies of adult twins have shown that desirable and undesirable life events are moderately heritable as are specific life events and life circumstances, including divorce, the propensity to marry, marital quality ...
[2] [3] Behavioural genetic concepts also existed during the English Renaissance, where William Shakespeare perhaps first coined the phrase "nature versus nurture" in The Tempest, where he wrote in Act IV, Scene I, that Caliban was "A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick".
Nurture is usually defined as the process of caring for an organism, as it grows, usually a human. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It is often used in debates as the opposite of "nature", [ a ] whereby nurture means the process of replicating learned cultural information from one mind to another, and nature means the replication of genetic non-learned behavior.
Historically, interactionism has presented a limited view of the manner in which behavioral traits develop, and has simply demonstrated that "nature" and "nurture" are both necessary. [3] Among the first biologists to propose an interactionist theory of development was Daniel Lehrman . [ 4 ]
One particular advantage of applying the biopsychosocial model to developmental psychology is that it allows for an intersection within the nature versus nurture debate. This model provides developmental psychologists a theoretical basis for the interplay of both hereditary and psychosocial factors on an individual's development.
Modern research attempts to distinguish between these causes and to analyze any ethical concerns raised. Since behavior is a result of interactions between nature and nurture, researchers are interested in investigating how biology and environment interact to produce such differences, [3] [4] although this is often not possible. [4]: 36