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

1st Environmental Influence - Prenatal

Second arrangement – twins share a placenta

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

A trained brain

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.

Culture and Self

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

Gender and Culture

The Nature and Nurture of Gender

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

The Nature and Nurture of Gender

Two theories of gender typing