D In the last few decades of the 20th


century, research revealed that human behaviour was far


more complex than the behaviourist model indicated. In child development circles, there was an increasing dialogue about the concept of temperament, the concept that certain aspects of a person’s personality are innate or inborn, rather than learnt.


E Dr Stella Chess and Dr Alexander Thomas pioneered studies of temperament that illustrate the complexity of human drives and the interaction between the forces of nature and nurture. In the early 1950s, they began work on a huge project which came to be known as the ‘New York Longitudinal Study’. They selected 133 infants at birth. These selected infants were carefully observed in the newborn nursery and various characteristics of activity and responsiveness to the environment were noted. Chess and Thomas observed that, as newborns, the infants had unique traits and distinct ways of reacting. No two were exactly alike. The key finding of these researchers was the stereotypical and reproducible nature of the infants’ reactivity.


F Drs Thomas and Chess did not end their study at this point, however. They continued to observe the growing children throughout infancy, childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Among the findings was that the temperamental style exhibited by each infant in the nursery persisted, to varying degrees, throughout the growing years. In fact, this innate temperament continued to influence various aspects of the individual’s behaviour into adulthood. It was clear that nature (these inborn characteristics) affects behaviour and personality in significant ways.


G These studies, along with many others, affirmed that both nature and nurture affected behaviour in critical ways. The data showed that inherited temperament and talents (genetically determined) interact with the environment and produce a dynamic interplay between the two. It became clear that this interplay determined the final product: the unique character and behaviour of the child and the adult he or she becomes. The actions of parents, teachers, therapists and others do make a difference. We now know that these nurturing influences are moulding forces long at work in the individual.


H These conclusions are not the end of the story, however. By the 1990s, the issue of behaviour had become even more complex. Fresh understanding developed as high-tech tools allowed scientists to ‘see’ the brain in action. Instruments such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and fMRI (functional MRI), provided a way for the newly emerging field of neuroscience to correlate brain activity and brain anatomy with action and behaviour.


I This complex area of study has helped us understand that the brain from birth is in the process of remoulding itself. At birth, the baby’s brain holds about 100 billion neurons (about as many functional brain cells as there are stars in the Milky Way). At birth, the brain contains all the brain cells it will ever have. At first, the majority of these cells are isolated. Maturity in all of its forms – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – is the process of these cells becoming connected and forming trillions of functional networks. This process is gradual, but deliberate. At the same time that networks are forming, another process is occurring. The brain is steadily discarding neurons (brain cells) that are not used and apparently not needed.


J So, it now seems that the nurture the individual receives (the environmental stimulation) determines which neurons are deleted and which ones form permanent connections with other neurons. At the biological, micro-anatomy level, nurture affects nature. However, nature (inborn temperament) to a great degree determines how the person reacts to the environment and so affects the feedback received. So nature and nurture work together in a recycling feedback loop. As one eminent scientist has pointed out, asking whether nature or nurture is more important to human development is like asking whether length or width is more important to a rectangle.


28 Pathway to IELTS 6.0


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