D1: Assess the impact of both innate traits and external factors on the physical, intellectual, emotional, and social growth during two distinct phases of an individual’s life.
Infants
Physical:
- Infants grow rapidly in the first 3 years of life; they are born with certain characteristics such as blue eyes, blonde hair. These characteristics are genetic as they are passed on from their parents to them. Nurture-
- However an infant’s growth is predominantly determined by the nutrients that they receive. If an infant is brought up on the poverty line, or in a neglectful household they are unlikely to receive the nutrients that they need to grow to their full potential. In conclusion I think that although nature plays a large part of their development, without the right nurture they would be unable to grow regardless of their genetic makeup.
Intellectual:
Babies are born with cognitive and communicative abilities that can be impacted by their inherited intelligence from their parents. Parents and caregivers play a crucial role in helping infants acquire important skills for their future. The quality of the educational institution they attend has a significant impact on their intellectual growth, with better schools maintaining higher academic standards. In conclusion, I argue that both nature and nurture have an equal influence on shaping the intellectual development of infants, as it can be inherited and nurtured through education and upbringing.
Emotional:
- All babies have the ability to show social releasers to such as smiling and crying. These are innate abilities that allow them to show their emotions to their primary caregiver.
- As a child grows they learn more complex emotions from their parents and caregiver. The emotions that they observe from others teach them how they show certain emotions. Overall, I think that the emotional development of an infant is influenced equally by nature and nurture, as they learn by mimicking parents and carers emotions (nurture), but have the innate ability to show emotions to tell people how you are feeling.
Social:
- A baby has the ability to recognise their mother, a survival instinct. At the age of one month they follow people around the room with their eyes, and by two months display social releasers such as smiling. By 8 months of age they begin to start talking simple words. Nurture –
- As an infant they begin to attend nursery, and learn social skills with other children. This teaches them to communicate with other children. At first they interact in side by side play, they don’t play together. By the age of 3 they start to play with other children. In my opinion nurture plays the major role in the social development of an infant because if they are isolated from people they will develop no social skills, such is the case of Genie.
Adolescence
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Physical
:Puberty is a naturally occurring physical effect of adolescence, in girls they begin menstruation their hips widen and their breasts develop, in boys their shoulders broaden, they become more muscular, their testicles drop and their voice deepens. Nurture –
- During adolescence, teenagers are exposed to different substances (drugs, cigarettes, alcohol) which can result in a changed physical state, such as taking drugs as a teenager can result in a stunted growth. In my opinion nature plays the biggest role of altering adolescent’s physical state as they change from having children’s bodies to adult, for the majority of adolescents their physical changes are due to nature, although some will also be altered by drugs or alcohol.
Intellectual:
- An adolescent with intellectual parents may have passed down the gene. This is also the stage of intellectual development that Piaget says adolescents begin to form their own ideas about politics, society etc. Nurture –
- This is a stage in someone’s life that they are easily influenced by peers, the media etc. Therefore the choices that they make regarding their education heavily influence their intellect. These decisions are influenced by those around them. I think that nurture plays the biggest role in an adolescent’s intellectual development as they are heavily influenced by their peers, by their teachers at school who educate them, and also by the media.
Emotional:
- During adolescence, hormone levels are higher than normal, this can result in imbalances and mood swings which can cause emotional problems for the adolescent and may possibly result in lowered self esteem. Nurture –
- Emotionally an adolescent is less reliant on their parents, and now more dependent on their friends. They also turn to their peers for support and advice. Emotionally I think a person is equally influenced by both nature and nurture, as their hormones play a big role in their emotions but they rely on support from friends. Social:
Nature:
- Bowlby’s theory of attachment suggests that the attachment that you had with your primary caregiver forms a schema for your adolescent relationships, this impacts them socially, and is reflective of their social development as a child Nurture:
- They are exposed to a variety of different things by their peer group and the media, such as drugs, sex, and alcohol by their peer group. This changes the way they interact socially with others, drugs and alcohol may affect their social wellbeing by acting as a depressant. Socially a person is influenced more by nurture as they are becoming more actively involved with their friends, and also with relationships with the other sex. These help them to learn what is and isn’t socially acceptable in different relationships and is built on the foundations that they learnt when they were younger.
