Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.

Posted: November 11th, 2022

Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.

The purpose of this paper is to provide you with experience in investigating an issue of interest to you in the context of aging.
You are to choose a topic of interest to you and analyze this topic through interviews with two people who represent two different stages of the lifespan. Your interviews are to focus on the perceptions of what it is like to experience your topic of interest at different life stages. Examples include interviewing a 6-year-old and a 12-year-old in order to see the cognitive differences between them or interviewing someone who grew up in the 1960s and someone who grew up in 1990s to examine the social differences.Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.

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You will need to assert a clear introduction to your topic and a strong thesis statement, support it with arguments and evidence from course content, and develop a conclusion that addresses the significance and implications of your findings.
Choose a topic of interest to you. Review the syllabus and textbook for ideas, or speak with me. Do not conduct your interview until your topic and questions have been approved.
For the interview, you will need to develop a series of open-ended questions (at least five) related to your topic that you will use as a guide in your interview. Additional follow-up questions are expected to be generated during the course of the interview. Questions should be written in a manner to elicit in-depth responses: Examples of beginnings to good questions are:
How have your opinions/attitudes/beliefs/perceptions of XYZ changed from when you were younger?
How do you believe your opinions/attitudes/beliefs/perceptions of XYZ will change as you age?
What life experiences have influenced your opinions/attitudes/beliefs/perceptions about XYZ?
Examples of appropriate topics include schooling, career, marriage/dating, social norms/expectations, morals/religion.
Interviews are expected to last a minimum of 15 minutes to gather enough data.Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.
It is recommended that you audio record your interviews, but you will need to obtain permission from your interviewee to do so.
The people you interview are to be anonymous in your paper. No identifying characteristics (e.g., relation to you, name) are to be included in your paper.
Be objective – this paper should NOT include your personal opinions about the topic you are researching. Do not use “I” or “you” statements in your writing.
Include an introductory paragraph and a strong thesis statement that will preview and provide context to your paper. End your paper with a concise summary and a strong conclusion.
Writing should be free of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors.
Pay attention to sentence and paragraph structure and the use of transitions that relate topics and/or issues together. Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence, and every sentence within the paragraph should tie back to the topic sentence.
Your paper is to be double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, with one inch margins all around, and three – four pages in length EXCLUDING the title page.Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.

Lifespan development, influence of nature and nurture
Lifespan development is the psychological study of the ways in which individuals stay the same and change over time. It answers the questions of how children fundamentally differ from the adults they grow up to become, and how adults are influenced by the children they once were.In fact, it explores how individuals change and grow from when they are conceived until they die, including psychosocial development, language, cognition, and psychophysiological processes, as well as how they impact peers and family (Plomin, 2018). The concept of development is one that intrigues psychologists, with interest in how individuals grow and change from conception through childhood, adolescent and adulthood until death. This implies that development is a lifelong process occurring across the three domains of psychosocial, cognitive and physical development. Psychosocial development involves social relationships, personality and emotions. Cognitive development involves creativity, reasoning, thinking, language, memory, attention and learning. Physical development involves changes and growth to the brain and body, health and wellness, motor skills, and the senses (White, Livesey& Hayes, 2013). The present paper focuses on understanding the influence of nature and nurture on lifespan development as explored through interviews.Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.
The question of whether human development is the result of nurture (culture and environment) or nature (genetics and biology) is one that has plagued and continues to plague psychologists. It is typically referred to as the nurture versus nature debate, drawing the interests of psychologists who seek to comprehend how human traits and personalities are the products of biological factors and genetic makeup, and how individuals are shaped by the environment who include culture, peers, and family (Kandler, 2012). For example, why do children behave in a manner similar to their biological parents – is this the result of childhood environment as learned from the parents or genetic influences? What of adopted children, are they more likely to behave in a manner similar to their biological or adopted parents? What of siblings, should those from the same family behave in a similar manner or differently? These are questions of interest to psychologists since every person is born with specific inherited genetic traits (such as height, eye color, skin color, hair color, and certain personality traits). Beyond the inherited genetic traits, the environment has a reciprocal interaction with the inherited genes. The genes influence how individuals interact with the environment, and at the same time, the environment influences how individuals express their genes (Levitt, 2013).Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.
To explore the influence of nature and nurture on lifespan development, two interviews were conducted with two individuals who represent different stages of the lifespan. The first interview was conducted with a 28-year-old teacher (millennial/generation Y) and the second interview was conducted with a 57-year-old retiree (generation X). The interview results reveal the common theme that genetic similarities are typically accompanied by personality, behavior and physical similarities, although environment and proximity moderate this relationship. They make it clear that genetics cannot be left out of lifespan debates, and the environment cannot be left out since behavioral traits are not wholly inherited. Still, it is notable that the interviews also make it difficult to address the nurture versus nature debate conclusively. That is because the interviewees are influenced by common-sense notions that contradict sound scientific principles. This is particularly so when they reviewed biological relations either suggested nurture or nature as being wholly responsibility for traits that could be the result of environmental influences (Peterson, 2014).Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.
For instance, the first interviewee plays semi-professional soccerand believes that this is a genetically inherited trait since all biological siblings are involved in sports as professionals or semi-professionals. The second interviewee is short-sighted and wears prescription glasses to correct his vision that has worsened over time, believing that this is a genetically inherited trait since his father has vision problems. His biological siblings similarly have vision problems and either wear glasses or have had to undergo corrective eye surgery. It is tempting to conclude that genetics is wholly responsible for the first interviewees sports inclination and the second interviewees short-sightedness. This could be true, but the information offered by the interviewees is inconclusive to make such assertions from a scientific perspective. That is because these traits could be influenced by genetics as well as the environment. For the first interviewee, genetics could influence his sports inclination with the environment (growing up familiar with sports) also likely to have an influence. For the second interviewee, genetics could influence vision, but the environment (such as reading for long hours with glare and aging) could also influence vision. In both cases, it is clear that the noted correlation does not necessarily imply causation as the interviewees indicated. To produce conclusive summaries of causation, it is necessary for a scientific study to be conducted with the genetics and environment controlled through comparing family members with genetic ties and those without genetic ties in different environments (Crago, 2017).
These outcomes have not done enough to resolve the nature versus nurture debate in as far as lifespan development is concerned. The problem takes a conceptual connotation in noting that personality, behavior and physical characteristics have an underlying structure that does not necessarily match to the existing intuitions about nurture-nature.Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture. In seeking to determine whether nature (genetics) or nurture (environment) is important in lifespan development, we may be emphasizing the wrong thing. That is because both the environment and genetics are important in every traits development since genes cannot develop without interacting with the environment, and the environment can only work if they have genes to work with as has been determined by the present analysis. Overall, it should be clarified that the development of a trait (heritability of the trait) during an individual’s lifespan is a property of the trait (genetics) and particular context (environment) since nature and nurture are intimately linked.Lifespan Development, Influence of Nature and Nurture.