Nature and nurture debate

The documented failure: candidates define both terms well, then attach them to the wrong part — a stressful home life where nature was asked, family history where nurture was asked. Good psychology scores zero, because each answers the other part. Fix: underline the word in the stem, then apply the born-with test — present at birth is nature, learnt since is nurture.

Candidates blur 1PS0's debates. Nature-nurture asks where behaviour comes from — inherited biology or environment. Reductionism-holism asks at what level to explain it — simplest parts or the whole person. They overlap but come apart: nurture can be reductionist, nature can be holistic. If a question says nature or nurture, answer about the source, not the level.

When a question names a study the marks are in its detail, and Caspi et al. is poorly known: candidates write it showed depression is genetic, or muddle its sample and findings. Crediting detail: depression was likeliest with the short 5-HTT gene AND stressful life events; the short version alone did not predict it. Drop either half and the finding is wrong.

The evidence does not say a person inherits depression or addiction itself — they inherit a raised vulnerability, a predisposition that may never become a diagnosis. Writing she inherited depression from her mother overstates the claim. Say vulnerability, not the disorder — this is why the short gene predicted depression only alongside stressful events.

Asked to describe the difference between nature and nurture, candidates write one definition of each and stop. The contrast is only implied, credited with one mark. The second needs a connective — whereas, while, however — to name the axis the two differ on. Two true definitions are not a difference until that connective makes it explicit.

Two distortions. Pick a side: the debate is about relative contribution, not one cause — identical twins share all their genes yet only one may be diagnosed, and Caspi et al. found the short gene and stressful events matter together. Nature means nothing helps: cause and cure differ — CBT (Young, 2007) helped addicts, and a nurture-based problem can respond to an SSRI.

Two nature-evidence traps. It runs in the family, so it is genetic: families share a home, stress and the adults' example, so a family pattern is consistent with genes without proving them (a validity limit). The SSRI helped, so the cause was chemical: a treatment shows what eases a problem, not what started it. Use each as AO3 — claim, limitation, consequence.