October 29, 2013 Objectives: To develop a better understanding of Nurture, and to develop an understanding of genes. Question: Do you/your parents have attached or separated ear lobes?

Nature v. Nurture What do you think so far? Do Nature and Nurture interact and grow off of each other? Lets find out soon by examining Nurture in detail….

Heritability The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. It is a mathematical formula. Mark Twain explains it best using the barrel example.

Heritability Just because a trait is heritable does not mean it will affect an individual or be a defining trait. Heritability demonstrates only the extent to which a trait is explainable by genetics, but not the extent to which the trait will affect behavior in an individual outside of environmental influences

Environmental Influences on Behavior

Types of Environmental Influences ParentsPrenatalExperience Peer InfluenceCultureGender

How Much Credit ( or Blame ) Do Parents Deserve? Are children clay to be molded by their parents? 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?

Prenatal Environment Lets look at perhaps our first environmental influence….

Two Placental Arrangements in Identical Twins

Brain cells in an impoverished environment.

Brain cells in an enriched environment.

What does this mean for humans? If children from impoverished environments are given stimulating infant care, they score better on intelligence tests by age 12 than counterparts. Use it or lose it

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)

Evolutionary Psychology: Explaining Universal Behaviors Evolutionary psychology is the science that seeks to explain why humans act the way they do. Evolutionary psychology seeks to reconstruct problems that our ancestors faced in their primitive environments, and the problem-solving mechanisms they created to meet those particular challenges. From these reconstructed problem-solving adaptations, the science then attempts to establish the common roots of our ancestral behavior, and how those common behavioral roots are manifested today in the widely scattered cultures of the planet. The goal is to understand human behavior that is universally aimed at the passing of one's genes into the next generation.

Evolutionary Psychology: Explaining Universal Behaviors ●This discussion of evolutionary psychology is not about how one species evolves into another species over time. ● Rather, this discussion is about how genetics and environment interact, leading to changes in genetics to fit the environment. ● It is also about how traits that lead to survival are more likely to be passed down.

Natural Selection at Work 1959 Russian Fox story 40 Males, 100 Females- mated- then kept only tamest of bunch. Mated the tames. 40 years later New Breed of Fox

Look at our Behaviors… Why do infants fear strangers when they become mobile? Why are most parents devoted to their children? Why do humans share some universal moral ideas? Why do we have more phobias about spiders and snakes than electricity and nuclear weapons? Can you answer these questions using evolutionary psychology? Now, the big one?

How and why do men and women differ sexually?

Sexuality and the Evolutionary Psychologist Casual sex is more accepted by men. When average men and women randomly ask strangers for sex, 75% of men agreed, almost no women agreed. WHY?

Sperm is Cheap Eggs are not

What do men and women want? (According to Evolutionary Psychology) Men want: Healthy Young Waist 1/3 narrower than hips. Women want: Wealth Power Security

Which has more influence in your life? Your nature or nurture?

Peer Influence Perhaps the biggest environmental influence, at least at your age may be…. I can’t get my kids to clean up their clothes, but when they see their friends clean up, they jump to it. “Selection effect” we seek out people with similar interests- that may explain why we seem to conform to our peers.

Culture Behaviors, attitudes, traditions etc… of a large group that have been passed down from one generation to the next.

Cultural Variations To understand how cultures affect who we are it is important to recognize our cultural norms: an understood rule for acceptable behavior. Individual v. Collectivistic Cultures Greetings exercise Why is it so hard to identify our own cultural norms?

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

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.

Two Theories of Gender- typing

Social Learning Theory

Dad plays Baseball. Son imitates dad’s behavior. Dad rewards son. Mom puts on makeup. Son copies her. Dad punishes son.

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.