Environmental Influences on Behavior -Nurture! Why am I so weird?

Prenatal Environment (beware of teratogens!)‏ Lets look at perhaps our first environmental influence…. Prenatal Environment (beware of teratogens!)‏

How Much Credit ( or Blame ) Do Parents Deserve? You and your siblings grow up in the same environment, are you all the same? Parents effect your belief systems and values much more than your personality. Parents take too much credit for success and too much blame for failures. Extreme environmentalism can be VERY dangerous, why? Are children clay to be molded by their parents?

Experience and Brain Development - I spend a lot of $$$ sending Brody to pre-school. - They just play with a lot of toys and he has learned some bad habits - I could use that $$$ for a whole lot of guitars. -Is it money well spent?

Brain cells in an impoverished environment. Mark Rosenzweig and David Krech decided to raise rats in two different environments

Brain cells in an enriched environment. More synapses formed Brain weight increased Rats became naturally curious

What does this mean for humans? If children from impoverished environments given stimulating infant care, they score better on intelligence tests by age 12 than counterparts. Use it or lose it - Applies to everyone! If you stop a particular task, a pruning process takes place in the brain, neural connections are dissolved to make way for new ones

A Trained Brain A well-learned finger-tapping task activates more motor cortex neurons (right) than were active in the same brain before training (left)‏

Role of Parents? Society praises parents for their children's successes and blame parents for children’s vices. Parents do matter, and is clearest in extremes: the abused child becomes an abuser, the neglected child becomes neglectful, the loved and well disciplined become self- confident and socially competent Yet, personality is a big determinate. Some say 10% of a child's success and failures are because of home environment

Perhaps the biggest environmental influence, at least by your age may be…. Peer Influence I can’t get Brody to clean up his toys, but when he sees his friends clean up in school, he jumps to it. “Selection effect” we seek out people with similar interests- that may explain why we seem to conform to our peers. We seek to fit in with our groups and are influenced by them

Think about this, yo! Preschoolers that will not normally eat a certain food, will do it around their peers if they are eating it. (Brody and sandwiches! OH! MY! GOSH!) You learn your language from your parents, but your accent from your peers (Harris, 2007) Teens that smoke, typically model smoking, suggested pleasure, and offer a cig. Might explain why your parents sometimes look like this.

Who does what? Parents Peers Education Discipline Responsibility Orderliness Charitableness Ways of interacting with authority figures Peers Learning cooperation Finding the road to popularity Inventing styles of interacting among people of same age Gardner, 1998

Culture Behaviors, attitudes, traditions etc… of a large group that have been passed down from one generation to the next. The gift of language! We have culture’s accumulated knowledge!

Cultural Variations To understand how cultures effect who we are it is important to recognize our cultural norms: understood rules for acceptable behavior. Britain – have smaller cars, use left hand for fork, liberal about nudity, stand in lines Japan – take your shoes off in the house, because their streets are so dirty Colliding norms!!! If you are a male, how would you greet a male in Albania? What time do you show up at a house in the Middle East if they say to be there at 5:00 pm? Why is it so hard to identify our own cultural norms?

Values Contrast between Cultures Concept Individualism Collectivism Self Independent (identity from traits) Interdependent (identity from belonging) Life Task Discover and express one’s uniqueness Maintain connections, fit in, perform role What Matters Me! Personal achievement and fulfillment; rights and liberties; self-esteem Us. Group goals and solidarity; social responsibility and relationships; family duty Coping Method Change reality Accommodate to reality Morality Defined by individuals (self-based) Defined by social networks (duty-based) Relationships Many, often temporary or casual; confrontation acceptable Few, close and enduring; harmony valued Attributing behavior Behavior reflects one’s personality and attitudes Behavior reflects social norms and roles p. 516

Variations over Time Different generations of the same culture may also have differing norms. –Counter Culture

Memes self-replicating ideas, catch- phrases, fashions or innovations passed from person to person. Genes of culture. “You didn’t build that!’ Red Scare The most interesting man in the world

Gender We already know the nature differences. XX v XY But that focuses on SEX: We are going to discuss GENDER: What is the difference?

Gender Roles A set of expected behaviors for males and females List some of your gender roles. What gender role is she breaking?

Changing Attitudes about Gender Roles

Gender Identity Our own sense of male or female. Personalized to us We realize our gender identity through gender- typing: acquiring our gender identity. http://michiedo.blogspot.com/2008/12/im-glad- im-boy-im-glad-im-girl.html

Two Theories of Gender-typing

Social Learning Theory I change the oil in the car Brody gets his wagon out and pretends to work on it, like daddy I reward Brody with verbal recognition and praise

Social Learning Theory Brody’s Mom puts on makeup. Brody copies her. I punish Brody.

Gender Schema Theory Schema: a concept or framework of how we organize information. Develop schemas for gender. See the world through the lens of your gender schemas. Boy’s don’t do this, that’s for girls. Yeah, that’s cool!!!! I want to do that.