Impact Of Nature And Nurture On Intelligence

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Impact of Nature and Nurture on Intelligence
Introduction
For as long as anyone can remember, people have always been trying to explain the unknown. In the scientific world, psychologists study concepts in hopes to illuminate them and educate the masses. Many psychological theories have been heavily debated over time, including that of the development of intelligence. Intelligence is a hot topic first due to the fact that it has not always been a defined concept. Different theories regarding what intelligence truly is have come and gone however a major argument surrounding intelligence is what factors play the largest role in the development of intelligence. This question is most often associated with the famous Nature vs Nurture debate. The …show more content…

Who doesn’t wish to know if smart people are born that way or if hard working and studying is the reason for their success? Important topics, such as what attributes most to the development of intelligence in humans is personally fascinating. It is also crucial to determine how intelligence is developed in order to understand why intelligence levels may vary from person to person. In response to this ongoing debate, the research question, to what extent do genetic and environmental factors influence levels of intelligence? was composed. Either side can be argued, for it is common to wish to see a clear answer. It can be argued that both genetic and environmental factors impact intelligence levels, however ultimately the external, environmental factors play a larger role in the development of intelligence levels. Through an in depth discussion regarding intelligence, the nature vs nurture debate, genetic and environmental factors, including well known tests and experiments, the research question will indeed be answered along with support of the proposed idea that genetic and environmental factors both impact …show more content…

The renowned intelligence quotient, or IQ was created by William Stern. This incorporates a person’s mental age and their actual age to discover where they fall intellectually compared to other people (Myers, 2007, p.444). When measuring intelligence, according to Myers (2007), it is important to realize that “Today’s intelligence tests therefore produce a mental ability score based on the test-taker’s performance relative to the average performance of others the same age” (p. 444). Many people question how credible intelligence tests are since intelligence itself could mean several different things to a person. Perhaps to compensate for this, numerous ability tests are in place at schools and workplaces. Examinations such as aptitude tests, which asses certain abilities, achievement tests, which reflect abilities and other tests such has the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale have been put in place to determine intelligence scores (Weiten, 2004, p. 342). The standardization of intelligence tests helps strengthen the reliability and validity of the tests, so that consistent and legitimate results are

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