Question

Behaviorists from John Locke on have assumed that we can shape our children any way we like by controlling their environment and the use of modeling, reward, and punishment. How would Scarr modify this position? What type of evidence does Scarr site to substantiate her position? Provide some details.

Answer 1

For the British philosopher, John Locke, human beings are like ‘blank slate’ indicating that thought and behaviour are under the influence of the changes in the surrounding environment. Thus Locke emphasised on the role of nurture or the positive and negative reinforcement provided by environment as the main cause behind human behaviour. Locke was a firm believer in the idea that children’s intellectual ability can be improved by controlling the punishment mechanisms for maladpative behaviour and rewarding learning of positive behaviour and adaptive an competent skills by providing greater environmental stimulation.

However, many psychologists like Sandra Scarr have contested the nurture position in the debates on human behaviour and mental abilities. Instead, they emphasise on the role of nature or hereditary as the underlying cause of behaviour. Scarr presented a strong argument in favour of the genetic causes of phenomena like intelligence a study opposed to Locke’s idea of blank slate and presented that human beings are not blank slate. Rather, they are like many species have a pre-written script for behavioral and mental processes. She used data from Twin studies to make a case in favour of the roe of heredity. In her research, she compared the IQ scores of identical twin species with fraternal twins and presenetd the correlation for IQ test scores of .86 for identical twins and .55 for fraternal twins, thereby indicating that identical twins were more alike than fraternal twins in their intellectual abilit. The high correlation values were explained in tetrms of greater genetic similarity between identical twins ( Identical twins show 100 % similarity in their genes ). Thus, the high correlation values for intelligence in identical twins led Scarr to contest Locke’s claim to environmental basis of behaviour and mental abilities and she presented that heredity plays an important role if not a definitive role in controlling human behaviour.