1. Myers PSYCHOLOGY Seventh Edition in Modules
Environmental Influences on Behavior
James A. McCubbin, Ph.D.
Clemson University
Worth Publishers

2. Environmental Influence
Two placental arrangements in identical twins
What environmental influences affect development? Popular psychology suggests that parenting without rules, physical punishment and overprotective parents may be to blame. These claims, however, have not been proven. What has been proven is that early learning experiences, peers and culture might account for nurture’s role in personality development.

3. Environmental Influence
Experience affects brain development
Impoverished
environment
Rat brain
cell
Enriched
Early Brain and Brain Development
For our brains to reach their potential early experience as children is critical. For example if you are raised in a home where you don’t have the opportunity to learn to read and write then you will never learn to read and write as an adult.
Our brain tissue continues to change as we get older. Brain pathways that are maintained through practice and experience stay strong. Pathways that are never used fade away. For example, you learned in Grade 10 Geography where all of the major cities in Canada are located on the map. If you don’t use this knowledge periodically then the neural pathway that was once created will fade away.

4. Environmental Influence
A trained brain

5. Environmental Influence
Culture
the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next
Norm
an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior
Culture is the shared attitudes, beliefs, norms and behaviours of a group. Norms are understood rules for accepted and expected behaviour in the group. Culture influences our food selection, religious choices, and family activities. Because of culture we develop a set of expectations about the kinds of behaviours others should exhibit.
If you give priority to the goals of the group, which can be the extended family or a work group, then you are called a collectivist. Asians and Africans typically raise their children in a collectivist environment where several family members and friends have input.
If you give priority to your own goals over the group’s goals, then you are an individualist. Europeans and North Americans typically raise their children as individualists. These children are raised by only their parents.
No one way is better than the other. In our diverse world successfully raising children has occurred in both collectivist and individualist cultures.

6. Environmental Influence
Personal Space
the buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies
Memes
self-replicating ideas, fashions, and innovations passed from person to person

7. The Nature and Nurture of Gender
X Chromosome
the sex chromosome found in both men and women
females have two; males have one
an X chromosome from each parent produces a female child
Y Chromosome
the sex chromosome found only in men
when paired with an X chromosome from the mother, it produces a male child

8. The Nature and Nurture of Gender
Testosterone
the most important of the male sex hormones
both males and females have it
additional testosterone in males stimulates
growth of male sex organs in the fetus
development of male sex characteristics during puberty
Role
a set of expectations (norms) about a social position
defining how those in the position ought to behave

9. The Nature and Nurture of Gender
Gender Role
a set of expected behaviors for males and females
Gender Identity
one’s sense of being male or female
Gender-typing
the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

10. The Nature and Nurture of Gender
Gender and Culture

11. The Nature and Nurture of Gender

12. The Nature and Nurture of Gender
Social Learning Theory
theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished
Gender Schema Theory
theory that children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and that they adjust their behavior accordingly

13. The Nature and Nurture of Gender
Two theories of gender typing