Assignment: Nature vs Nurture – Heredity vs Environment

Assignment: Nature vs Nurture – Heredity vs Environment

Assignment: Nature vs Nurture – Heredity vs Environment

Background

It has long been known that certain physical characteristics are biologically determined by genetic inheritance. Colour 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. Other physical characteristics, if not determined, appear to be at least strongly influenced by the genetic make-up of our biological parents. Height, weight, hair loss (in men), life expectancy and vulnerability to specific illnesses (e.g. breast cancer in women) are positively correlated between biologically related individuals. These facts have led many to speculate as to whether psychological characteristics such as behavioural tendencies, personality attributes and mental abilities are also “wired in” before we are even born. Those who adopt an extreme heredity 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 differences are due to each person’s unique genetic code.

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 behaviour in a pre programmed way. The classic example of the way this affects our physical development is 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.

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. behaviourism). From this point of view psychological characteristics and behavioural differences that emerge through infancy and childhood are the result 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. So, when an infant forms an attachment it is responding to the love and attention it has received, language comes from imitating the speech of others and cognitive development depends on the degree of stimulation in the environment and, more broadly, on the civilisation within which the child is reared.

In practice hardly anyone today accepts either of the extreme positions. There are simply too many “facts” on both sides of the argument which are inconsistent with an “all or nothing” view. So instead of asking whether child development is down to nature or nurture the question has been reformulated as “How much?” That is to say, given that heredity and environment both influence the person we become, which is the more important? This question was first framed by Francis Galton in the late 19th century. Galton (himself a relative of Charles Darwin) was convinced that intellectual ability was largely inherited and that the tendency for “genius” to run in families was the outcome of a natural superiority. This view has cropped up time and again in the history of psychology and has stimulated much of the research into intelligence testing (particularly on separated twins and adopted children). A modern proponent is the American psychologist Arthur Jenson. Finding 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 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. Galton himself in 1883 suggested that human society could be improved by “better breeding”. In the 1920’s the American Eugenics Society campaigned for the sterilisation of men and women in psychiatric hospitals. Today in Britain many believe that the immigration policies are designed to discriminate against black and Asian ethnic groups. However the most chilling of all implications drawn from this view of the natural superiority of one race over another took place in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. For many environmentalists there is a barely disguised right wing agenda behind the work of the behavioural geneticists.

In their view part of the difference in the I.Q. scores of different ethnic groups is due to inbuilt biases in the methods of testing (e.g. IQ tests use questions which favour white people over black people as they use concepts that white people are more familiar with – see the Chitling Test for a satirical take on this) . 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 in the 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 behavioural 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 behaviour is due to biology and how much to culture is just as controversial. However in recent years there has been a growing realisation that the question of “how much” behaviour is due to heredity and “how much” to environment may itself be the wrong question.

Take intelligence as an example. Like almost all types of human behaviour it is a complex, many-sided phenomenon which reveals itself (or not!) in a great variety of ways. The “how much” question assumes that the variables can all be expressed numerically and that the issue can be resolved in a quantitative manner. The reality is that nature and culture interact in a host of qualitatively different ways. This realisation is especially important given the recent advances in genetics. The Human Genome Project for example has stimulated enormous interest in tracing types of behaviour to particular strands of DNA located on specific chromosomes.

Newspaper reports announce that scientists are on the verge of discovering (or have already discovered) the gene for criminality, for alcoholism or the “gay gene”. 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 unravelling these qualitatively different and reciprocal influences on human behaviour.

Perspectives and the nature-nurture debate

1. Plot each of the perspectives below on the line indicating where they stand on the nature-nurture debate:

NATURE

NURTURE

How can you test for the genetic basis to behaviour?

· Family studies

· Twin studies

· Adoption studies

2. Outline the key problems with each research method below in relation to the nature-nurture debate

Family studies

Twin studies

Adoption studies

Modern psychology takes an interactionist view:

PKU	Nature: Nurture:
Diathesis-stress model	Nature: Nurture:

KEY SYNOPTIC TOPICS TO USE IN THE EXAM:

Gender:

Nature: Biological v nurture: SLT

Interactionist: Psychodynamic, cognitive

Schizophrenia

Nature: Biological v nurture: socio-cultural e.g. family systems

Interactionist: diathesis-stress

Depression

Nature: Biological v nurture: Cognitive

Interactionist: diathesis-stress

Substance abuse

Nature: Biological v nurture: Social factors

Cognitive development

Nature: nativists v nurture: Vygotsky (sociocultural)

Interactionist: Piaget. Assignment: Nature vs Nurture – Heredity vs Environment

Psych Week 6 Assignment – Organizational and Social Psychology (LINK)

For this Forum, in your Initial Post you will share with your classmates your observations from your research on Industrial/Organizational and Social Psychology as subspecialties and career options.

Please be sure to address BOTH subspecialties in your response to each question.  Points will be deducted if both subspecialties are not clearly and separately addressed.

1) After researching these areas, do you find them to be career possibilities you are interested in or careers that don’t capture your interest?  Why or why not?

2) What is at least one thing you learned about each of the two subspecialties that you did not previously know?

3) Describe a “real-world” application for each of the two subspecialties.  How could knowledge gained through the pursuit of each subspecialty help us to understand everyday problems, dilemmas, or situations?  Note:  your answer does not have to be specific to psychology as a field.  Think broadly; psychological principles can apply to many different fields.

Approach to Treatment of Patients With Personality Disorders (LINK)

John F. Clarkin Weill Cornell Medical College

Nicole Cain Long Island University

W. John Livesley University of British Columbia

We describe a framework for the application of treatment modules to the major domains of dysfunction manifested by clients with personality disorder. This integrated approach takes the clinician beyond the existing limited treatment research by using strategies and techniques from all the major treatment schools and orientations. This effort is necessary and timely because the field of personality disorders is currently struggling to further define and understand personality pathology beyond categories by articulating major dimensions of dysfunction across the personality disorder types marked by various degrees of severity.

KINDLY ORDER NOW FOR A CUSTOM-WRITTEN, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER

Keywords: personality disorders, psychotherapy, psychotherapy integration

Personality disorders (PDs) are prevalent and debilitating and have a powerful negative im- pact on work functioning and intimate and in- terpersonal relations. There are many impedi- ments to the treatment of patients with personality pathology, including controversies in defining PD, the rampant comorbidity among PDs and with symptom disorders, the range of severity across the disorders, the difficulties in identifying the key dimensions of personality dysfunction, and the paucity of treatment re- search on the numerous PD types.

In this article, we articulate an integrated modular approach to the treatment of PDs. We describe a framework for the application of treatment modules to the major domains of dys- function manifested by clients with PD. This is called an integrated approach (Stricker, 2010; Norcross & Wampold, 2011), because it takes the clinician beyond the existing treatment research—which is limited—and uses strategies and techniques from all the major treatment schools and orientations. An integrated modular approach emphasizes:

(a) the individuality of the patient, and not the category of disorder,

(b) the domains of dysfunction in the individual patient,

(c) the therapeutic use of modules of intervention from existing clinical approaches, especially those that have been empirically investigated, and

(d) the construction of a smooth fabric of intervention in the context of a developing alliance between therapist and patient.

Our attempt here and elsewhere (Livesley, Dimaggio, & Clarkin, in press) is to further the effort at integration by articulating a treatment framework specifically for those individuals with PDs. This effort is necessary because the field of PDs is currently struggling to further define and understand personality pathology be- yond categories by articulating major dimen- sions of dysfunction across the PD types marked by various degrees of severity (Clarkin, 2013).

There is an emerging consensus that the es- sence of the PDs across the various categorical types centers on difficulties in self-functioning and interpersonal functioning (Sanislow et al., 2010). The product of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edi- tion (DSM-5) Personality Disorder Work

John F. Clarkin, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College; Nicole Cain, Department of Psychology, Long Island University; W. John Livesley, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to John F. Clarkin, New York Presbyterian Hospi- tal, Weill Cornell Medical Center—Westchester Division, 21 Bloomingdale Road, White Plains, NY 10605. E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Psychotherapy Integration © 2015 American Psychological Association 2015, Vol. 25, No. 1, 3–12 1053-0479/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038766

mailto:[email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038766

Group—located in Section III of DSM-5 (2013)—provides a potential correction to the previously predominant focus on symptoms, be- cause it brings the field back to focus on the essence of personality pathology that is self and interpersonal functioning.

Why Consider an Integrated Approach to Treatment?

Evidence-based practice is defined as the combination of best available research with clinical expertise in the context of patient char- acteristics, culture, and preferences. There is every cogent reason to use information from empirically supported treatments when avail- able, but in reference to the PDs, the treatment research is limited to a few disorders, and even with those disorders, the results tend to be com- parable across treatment packages. Evidence- based practice for PDs must contend with a number of limitations in the research literature, and use clinical expertise to match the individ- ual client with the best treatment approaches.

The difficulties with applying the empirically supported treatment approach to the PDs are numerous. For example, PDs are marked by heterogeneity both within diagnosis and with comorbidity across the PDs. The various constellations that PD assumes make it difficult to articulate a treatment that fits all individuals even within one PD category. In addition, psychotherapy research to date is limited to a few disorders with relatively comparable effects. Only a few of the 10 DSM PDs have attracted psychotherapy research, with the vast majority of treatment research focused on borderline personality disorder (BPD). There is no indication that each disorder will be investigated with treatment research, but the clinician must proceed despite this situation.

There is also a growing awareness that genes and neurocognitive dysfunction are not specific to a particular diagnostic category, but rather are functions across diagnostic categories that are potential foci for therapeutic intervention. Molecular genetics will not provide a simple, gene-based classification of psychiatric illnesses, but rather genetic findings will likely delineate specific biological pathways and do- mains of psychopathology (Craddock, 2013). In this regard, the National Institute of Mental Health has declared an initiative to focus research not on categories of mental illness but on systems of neurocognitive functioning and dysfunction that extend across diagnostic categories (Hyman, 2011).

Finally, medicine in general is advancing to- ward an individualized approach to both assessment and treatment. Each individual is biologically unique, and this uniqueness suggests that treatment should be tailored to the individual. Although there are commonalities across people at the psychological level of functioning, it has become evident that each individual has a unique psychological history of development and engagement in the environment (Norcross & Wampold, 2011). This uniqueness is the fo- cus of the clinicians’ assessment of clients with suspected PD, the results of which guide the tailored intervention with that client.

With these issues in mind, we are recommending an integrated treatment approach that is probably already the most popular approach to the treatment of clients with PDs. We think it remains important to describe an integrated approach to the treatment of PDs in order to further clarify the issues and refine the approach. An articulation of an integrated approach to treatment may also legitimize the wise integrative approaches of many clinicians who worry that they are violating the empirical treatment recommendations.

What Is Integration?

We regard integration as a mental process engaged in by the clinician. This process begins at the first meeting between therapist and patient. The focus of the integration is the individual patient with a PD who is seeking help. The content of integration is the unique combination of domains of dysfunction matched with modules of intervention that are applied in a particular sequence over time.

In this conception of integration, one can conceive of a number of steps in this process: (a) arriving at a working conception of the patients’ dysfunctional domains, (b) generating a vision of how the client could realistically achieve a better level of adjustment, (c) imagining how this client can improve over time in a stepwise, progressive pattern, (d) using therapeutic interventions timed to the client’s readiness to change and salient problems at the moment, and (e) therapist awareness throughout treatment of the client’s perception of him or her and the impact on the process of change. The process of integration as conceptualized here is quite consistent with the empirically supported treatment approach mentioned be- fore. In the absence of empirical evidence for specific treatments for each of the PDs, and in the absence of empirical information on mechanisms of change, the clinician is forced to use his or her clinical judgment moment-to-moment and across a treatment episode. Assignment: Nature vs Nurture – Heredity vs Environment.

Probably the most salient exception to the dearth of empirically supported treatments for PDs is the treatment evidence for BPD. Cognitive–behavioral (Linehan, 1993), mentalization-based (Bateman & Fonagy, 2006), and object relations treatment (Clarkin, Yeomans, & Kernberg, 2006) are all empirically supported. Although we know that these treatment packages are associated with symptom change, there is little clarity about which elements in each approach are effective. In addition, some clients do not respond to the particular approach. It is possible that a more tailored approach to the particular patient with his or her unique strengths, weaknesses, and environment may produce significant change. Assignment: Nature vs Nurture – Heredity vs Environment.