1st Environmental Influence - Prenatal One arrangement –
two separate placentas
One may have a better placement
Separate placentas can make babies dissimilar in traits such as social competence and self-control
Environmental Influence
Experience affects brain development
Impoverishedenvironment
Rat braincell
Rat braincell
Enrichedenvironment
•Implications for humans?
Benefits of “Handling”
Touching and holding results in faster weight gain and neurological development for both babies and animals
Experience produces a bundle of neural connections
Language development is easy really early, almost impossible after adolescence
Environmental Influence - Parenting Blame on parents is
often overstated Hindsight example in
separated twin study – “Why are you so cleanly?”
Parents DO matter – evidence is in the extremes
Parenting amounts to less than 10% of personality differences
Environmental Influence - Peers
Peer influence is STRONG Preschoolers will eat food around other
kids that they will otherwise refuse to eat at home
Children will adapt accents of peers of accents of their parents
Teens who start smoking typically do so BECAUSE they have friends who model smoking… parental influence is not as important
Peer vs. Parent InfluenceParents more
strongly influence: Education Discipline Responsibility Orderliness Charitableness Ways of interacting
with authority figures
Peers more strongly influence: Learning
cooperation
Finding popularity
Inventing styles of peer interaction
Young people find peers more interesting, but look to parents when contemplating their own futures.
Environmental Influence Culture
the behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted through generations
Norm an understood rule for accepted
and expected behavior
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
Culture and Self
IndividualismIndividualism – giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes.
CollectivismCollectivism – giving priority to goals of one’s group (extended family, work group, etc) and defining one’s identity accordingly.
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
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
Gender and Social Connection
Females are more interdependent than males. Teen girls – more time with friends. Late adolscents – more time social networking Adults – prefer face-to-face conversation, use
conversation to explore relationships Males prefer conversation to communicate solutions Stark enough difference to predict gender of email
author.
Evolutionary connection – human evolution based on social connectedness.
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
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