Week 1, Blog Post #2

This is my third psychology class at Millersville. In one of my other psyc courses, we discussed nature vs. nurture, as mentioned in chapter one. Developmentalists try to figure out which impacts the individual more. Nature is genetic tendency or  biological predisposition. Nurture is the way a person was raised, including experiences and environmental factors such as family, friends, school and culture (p.5). I appreciated the text's explanation that not one is more important than the other. It states, "Nature always affects nurture, and then nurture affects nature". Biology as a fourth discipline, is a factor in deviant behavior. Proof that both factors: genetic variant and environment can determine a person's outcome, lies within a developmental study conducted in Dunedin, New Zealand. This developmental study assessed newborn babies' families and environments from early childhood on. The study shows mistreated children who had low MAOA, an enzyme code that affects neurotransmitters, were twice as likely to partake in criminal behavior. However, children with low MAOA, who were not mistreated, had a higher likely hood of being peaceful, law abiding adults. This proves that environmental influences are just important as biological influences.