In: Psychology
Define intelligence and explain whether intelligence is the result of nature or nurture. In your answer be sure to explain what "nature" and "nurture" refer to and give one piece of evidence for each side of the argument for intelligence.
Intelligence can be defined as the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. Intelligence also consists of learning from past experiences, solving problems and adapting to our environment.
Nature is the genetic makeup structure which determine our traits and our dominant physical features such as height, hair color, eye color. Nurture is the way our environment plays a role in shaping us. Environmental factors include home atmosphere, social and cultural influences, and day to day experiences.
One evidence for nature argument is that research has shown that monozygotic twins rared apart shared similar personality and intelligence than fraternal twins, which means that genes can determine our personality and intelligence to a certain extent. An evidence for the nurture argument is that children who are raised in impoverished environments such as in poverty, isolation and broken home show a decline in IQ over time.
Both nature and nurture have an influence on our behavior, and interact with each other..There are so many factors which influence are behaviors that it is difficult to identify and isolate a few. The behavior of an individual can be seen as outcome of very complex interaction of the genetic and environmental forces.