Developmental psychology - Essay Example

[Your full July 6, John Locke’s views on nature versus nurture debate The British philosopher,John Locke, believed that individuals develop their personalities as a result of nurture (Butatko and Daehler). He supported tabula rasa, that is, human mind is always blank when a child is born but is receptive to knowledge that gets imprinted on it through stimulation from the experiences gained from the society and culture. In short, experiences define our behavioral aspects. This viewpoint leaves no room for the nature part of the debate because if the mind is blank at birth, this means that there has been no role of genetics or heredity.

According to him, it is only the nurture that shapes and stimulates the mind because at the time of our birth, we do not own any already developed personality traits. This points to the fact that a child can be made to develop any kind of personality through nurture which includes his social interactions, surroundings, experiences, cultural aspects, religion, and etcetera. Hence, according to Locke, a child’s mind depends upon the society for its formulation. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s views on nature versus nurture debate The French philosopher, Rousseau, believed that the nature is responsible for the development of behavioral characteristics of an individual and contrary to what Locke’s believed, Rousseau stated that human mind is somewhat developed when a child is born and it does show behavior that the child has inherited from its parents (Crain).

That means genes are responsible for the makeup of the human mind. Rousseau believed that no one of us knows what our nature wants us to become. We are helpless because whatever our nature, inherited to us through biological factors, has intended for us will come our way. However, there is an inborn righteousness that is already present within a newly born mind that is apt to get spoiled by the evils of this society and is also apt to get enhanced by good social and personal interactions. Hence, according to Rousseau, most of the qualities that an individual possesses are inborn gifted to him through genes and little is the role of nurture.

Darwin’s views on nature versus nurture debate Considered as one of the most fundamental processes that results in evolution, natural selection was a concept put forth by Charles Darwin in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species. According to this concept, organisms (or traits) that are best suited to the environment are selected by nature to prevail due to which they are able to pass on their genetics on to the following generations. On the other hand, organisms (or traits) that are not best adapted in the environment tend to vanish away.

Human evolution has also been influenced by this concept of natural selection. According to Darwin, as he states in the revised version of his book, another name for natural selection is survival of the fittest (Darwin 8). Nature brings variations in the organic beings so that they are best suited to their environment. Hence, according to Darwin, the personalities of human beings are gifted by nature, through genetics, and the one who gets himself best adapted to the these natural processes is chosen by the nature for survival.

Works Cited Butatko, Danuta, and Marvin W. Daehler. Child Development: A Thematic Approach. USA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Crain, William. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. USA: Pearson Education, Limited, 2010. Darwin, Charles. Natural Selection. USA: Bibliolis Books, 2010.