Write a 8 page essay on Intelligence Nature versus Nurture Debate.Download file to see previous pages... The nature vs. nurture debate has been the most controversial in the history of the relatively

Write a 8 page essay on Intelligence Nature versus Nurture Debate.

The nature vs. nurture debate has been the most controversial in the history of the relatively young science of psychology. Essentially, curiosity about Intelligence and ways to measure it was what established psychology as separate science. Many psychologists have tried to define intelligence in numerable ways. While before many stream-lined definitions of intelligence existed – for instance, Sternberg &amp. Salter define intelligence as ‘the capacity for goal-directed adaptive behavior’ (Sternberg &amp.Salter, 1982, p. 3) while Gardner (1983) defined it as the application of cognitive skills and knowledge to learn, solve problems and obtain ends that are valued by an individual and culture – it has now been agreed that intelligence is multifaceted. This claim takes into consideration the many factors that constitute an individual’s response to and performance on most intelligence tests – for example, culture, spatial reasoning, verbal skills, problem solving abilities, education, etc. This brings us to the validity of Intelligence tests and whether they are an accurate indicator of one’s intelligence. Lorelle Burton states in his book, Psychology: Australian and New Zealand Edition, ‘intelligence tests are measures designed to assess an individual’s level of cognitive abilities compared to other people in a population’. ...

ssessment of an individual’s intelligence is the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test, which fairly evaluates cognitive ability and compares it against other individuals in a population. In the context of this paper, intelligence tests are only significant when discussing whether the intelligence they measure is genetic/hereditary or honed and brought on by environmental factors. We come to the core question of this essay: Nature or nurture? Renowned Harvard professor and psychologist, Stephen Pinker in his essay, ‘Why nature and nurture won’t go away’, explains that any given gene will behave differently in response to different environments. Working on this hypothesis he points out that there may then be an environment in which that specific gene might not work at all. Thus, given this mutual relationship between the gene and the environment, he states, ‘it is meaningless to try and distinguish genes and environments.’ This is a position reached by most contemporary scientists. However, this was not so in the past. In his book, The Blank Slate, Pinker relates a study conducted in the year 2000 by psychologist Nancy Segal of ‘virtual’ twins. ‘Virtual twins’, he explains, are the mirror image of identical twins – unrelated siblings, with one or both of them adopted, brought up in the same household and given the same treatment. Their IQ scores, however, barely correlated. One father in the study even said that despite their best efforts to treat them alike, the twins were as different as night and day. This suggests that genetic disposition might have a bigger role to play in contributing to person’s intelligence than the scientists mentioned above claim.