The Mental Abilities of an Individual - Essay Example

?Nature vs. Nurture One of the most widely disputed debates in psychology is the way in which our mental abilities develop. Some of our thoughts and actions seem to be programmed whereas other behaviors seem to be the result of a learned pattern. Thus is the battleground between the determinalistic responses to psychology versus the learned/experience-based approach. In addition to the debate on whether the mental abilities of an individual are a basis of more biology rather than learning, there is also a distinction that is made between the mind and the brain. While the two words may seem as synonyms to each other, they carry different connotations. According to Sacks, “Does the mind run the brain or the brain the mind?” This poses an interesting question regarding the development of mental abilities, which runs parallel to that of the nature vs. nurture debate. Are cognitive abilities the result of the neurology and brain development of the person, or does what a person learns influence brain development? The question is similar to that of the chicken and the egg. Thus, the question of whether our abilities are biologically driven or if they are environmentally driven are laid as a foundation to human growth and development. The compendium of human knowledge and consciousness is seated within our skulls as the brain. The brain is the most vital organ in our body in that it controls everything, both voluntary and involuntary. It is a vast collection of neurons, which work together to rely, process, and send out information. It is organized into different lobes that govern different cognitive tasks that develop with age. As a person ages, these parts of the brain become more complex and eventually start working together in order to processes and integrate things together. The conscious and the unconscious merge here with the storage of memory and the performance of cognitive tasks. One of the most unique features of the brain is in its adaptability (plasticity). If a part of the brain becomes injured, it will rewire itself by creating new pathways in order to bypass the damaged tissue. As a person learns, the brain rewires itself in order to make new connections to make the pathways of thought more efficient and complex. However, the reason that a person is able to learn is due to the fact that these pathways have already been created. Even as the brain develops, there is a certain threshold that is met in which the neurons will eventually lose productivity and die off. Because of this learning is hindered, however recent studies show that additional cognitive exercises can keep these neurons alive longer, thus showing how an environmental, or rather external stimulus, can play a part in being able to alter the physiology of a person. The first basis that psychology looks at is from the biological/physiological standpoint. Innately, humans are born with traits, which are derived from a genetic code. These discrete units, called genes, are passed down from generation to generation. The genetic code, DNA, encodes for proteins and other chemical components in the brain. As a result, some behaviors and physiological functions are affected by errors or mutations in the DNA. These mutations can occur as the result of random probability as well as through interaction of environmental effects. Thus, the behavior of an individual can result from these inherent features, which are determined by biology. For example, in cases of aggression, researchers find that amounts of testosterone in an individual can effect how aggressive an individual is. Both male and female individuals have testosterone in their body (except in the case of some genetic disorders). However, there are factors in which the levels of testosterone in the body can either be abnormally high or abnormally low. Thus, we see deviations from the normal patterns of behavior. From this example, it can be shown that biology and genetics does play a role in influencing human behavior. Another important basis in biopsychology is the development of the individual. The way in which we develop has an effect on our cognitive abilities. Piaget was a developmental psychologist who focused on how children learned and how their perception of the world changes as they age. He postulated four different stages in a person’s cognitive development: motor, sensorimotor, concrete operations, and lastly formal operations. Each stage deals with a different technique in which a child perceives and integrates information, each building on the other becoming more complex. Epstein was able to corroborate this development in thinking by looking at the physiological development of a child. Specifically, he looked at the development of the brain, in particular the size of the brain. He noticed that along with Piaget’s stages of development that certain abilities increase with the increase in brain size and some cognitive skills decrease. This piece of evidence clearly shows that the physiological component of psychology clearly plays a role in cognitive abilities. The other basis that psychologists debate on is that our cognitive abilities and beliefs develop as the result of learning and interaction with the environment. As a child, humans are learning about everything as stimuli after stimuli are stored and processed within the brain. These stimuli are integrated and children learn from this. As humans get older, more and more integration results in increasingly more complex thought patterns and cognitive abilities. Because of this, it is shown that a majority of our displayed behavior is the result of a learned condition, whether it originating from the parents care for the individual or the individuals interactions and experiences in the environment. The case can then be made again for aggression being a learned behavior. The epitome of this statement comes from a well known psychological experiment conducted by Alfred Bandura, a behavioral psychologist. He was studying aggression in smaller children to determine whether aggression was a learned behavior. The experiment consisted of a doll in which children watched adults interact with the doll both violently and peacefully. The children watching the peaceful interaction did not display any violent or aggressive tendencies toward the doll. However, the group that watched the adults interacts violently with the doll showed the opposite. When confronted with the doll, the children behaved violently and aggressively toward the doll often hitting it and smacking it around. From this point of view, it can be regarded that our behavior is the result of a learned behavior from observation. Another famous psychologist named Erickson came up with a theory of personality development, which also showed that environment and learning play a role in the development of personality and cognition. He termed these the psychosocial stages of development. He postulated that there were eight stages that occur over a person’s lifetime, which have inherent stages of internal personality and cognitive development. For example, the first stage is that of basic trust vs. mistrust, which occurs when a person is an infant. In this stage, the infant must learn to trust the caregivers in that they are there to provide for the infant as well as nourish the infant with love and attention. With each stage, there comes a core value associated with it, in this case hope. Problems in personality development can occur if a person does not overcome these stages, as they can become fixated on a certain stage, which can impede the progression and development of the others. From this respect, it is shown that the environment as well as the learning, which occurs in the individual has a direct effect on the way in which the individual develops and perceives the world. A different important topic dealing with the debate of the biological and environmental aspect of psychology, which has become a hot topic of debate in politics, is the idea of gender and sexual orientation. Traditionally, men are attracted to women and women are attracted to men. Men have testes and penises, whereas the females have ovaries and a vagina. Traditionally, the attraction is caused by pheromones, which elicit a sexual response and mating drive. However, there are genetic defects in which someone can be born with both genitalia. In this case, a person has a hard time in deciding which sex they are to associate with. Even though surgery can be done in order to somewhat correct the physiological abnormality, the psychological conundrum existed. In the case of identifying a person with a specific sex poses an unusual problem that is complex. In some cases, people identify with a specific sex that is different from that of their physiological parameters because they say that was how they were created. In other cases, people have regarded this as a choice. This leaves the debate open to question as to whether this is being driven by biology or learning. The topic of being gay, in particular, transcends into political arenas due to the questions of whether or not they can get married. In a heterosexual world, it is learned that a man must marry a women; therefore the idea of same-sex marriage is a learned abnormality, which should not occur. Even until recently, the American Psychological Association considered these to be a sexual disorder that was classified in the DSM or Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. The fact that both sides of the story are heard that it is out of a person’s control and that it is a choice for some people only muddles up the issue. One of the ways in which researchers have been able to approach the issue of the development of cognition is by approaching it as an epigenetic phenomenon or in the field of biopsychosocial psychology. This field states that the results of behavior, personality, and other characteristics inherent to a person are not developed from a singular cause, but rather from a combination of factors that when combined together cause the observed effect. There are also many studies, which combat either philosophy, specifically through the use of twin studies. In certain research studies, twins were separated from their alcoholic parents and are raised by a foster family. Even though alcoholism is supposed to have genetic markers for predisposition, the twins may never develop any alcoholic tendencies. The reverse is also true. Taking a set of twins from a non-alcoholic family and placing them in an environment where alcohol is present can lead to the development of alcoholism in the twins, even though they have no genetic predisposition. This is one of the reasons why the field of the biopsychosocial approach is appealing to researchers in that it is able to account for the interaction of multiple variables when attempting to explain a certain type of phenomenon or behavior. Even though there is a great amount of research and observational studies that are done that show that behavior and cognitive abilities are the result of a learned behavior, the main defining characteristic of a person is rooted in the biology and physiological aspects. There is no way to dispute the genetic code of a person. While the behavior of a person can be fixed and modified, genetic code cannot be altered. Neurotransmitter levels and the way that the brain was developed will ultimately have the biggest impact on a person’s cognitive abilities, more so than from what the person learns. This is because the domain of physiology is concrete and defined. It also defines the limits that a person can achieve. Once the brain has reached a certain point of development, there is only so far that cognitive abilities are going to develop after that. Thus, biology and the determinalistic factor plays the largest and most defining role in talking about how a person’s cognitive abilities will develop and to what extend the development will be. There is no set answer to the argument of what defines a person’s cognitive abilities, personality, etc. as being either determinalistic or learned. There is theories and evidence that present both sides of the case. However, there is some aspects of each theory which make it more appealing than its counterpart. The biopsychosocial approach takes the middle ground in defining that all of human behavior is the result of complex interactions with variables that are biological, sociological, and psychological in nature. Works Cited Blakeslee, Sandra. "When its time to make changes in your life, what role does the brain play?." American Health (1990): 74-78. "Epstein's Growth Periods." 122-23. Erikson,Erik. The Life Cycle Completed. New York: Norton and Company, 1997. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "The Five Sexes Revisited." The Sciences (2000): 19-23. Mehta, Pranjal H., and Jennifer Beer. "Neural mechanisms of the testosterone-aggression relation: The role of orbitofrontal cortex." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 22, no. 10 (October 2010): 2357-2368. PsycINFO, EBSCOhost (accessed May 9, 2011). Sacs, Oliver. "The Mind's Eye." The New Yorker (2003): 48-59. Shuttleworth, Martyn (2008). Bobo Doll Experiment. Retrieved 8 May 2011 from Experiment Resources: http://www.experiment-resources.com/bobo-doll-experiment.html Read More