Nature Vs Nurture Infant Development Essay

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Nature versus nature is a very important concept when studying infant development. The debate amongst psychologists about which affects someone’s psychology more has been around since the very conceptualization of psychology. It is widely accepted that both genetics (nature) and the environment (nurture) both contribute to and affect the way infants develop and grow. “Nature” is programmed into a baby at conception, and is just the way that genetics happened to be inherited from the parents. “Nurture” deals with how much the environment/parenting an infant is exposed to while developing affects them. A sensitive period is a point in time during the infant’s development where an infant’s development is most sensitive to being affected by their …show more content…

With human attachment it’s a bit harder to pin down an exact sensitive period for the formation of attachment; it’s not like with animals like ducklings that imprint where the critical period is immediately after birth and very easy to identify. However, we do know that the care and the responsiveness of the parent to the infant in the first few years of life is very important to the attachment style that is formed, which affects how they bond with other people when the infant is older. Temperament can definitely affect which attachment style is formed, especially if the infant has a temperament that doesn’t mesh very well with their parent’s lifestyle/personality. Because temperament can affect the way the parent interacts with the infant, temperament definitely has an impact on the sensitive period for attachment. Interestingly enough, temperament is one of the few qualities infants have that do not change drastically as they get older. Due to the fact that it is heavily based on biology, temperament isn’t really subjected to any type of change, whether it be continuous or discontinuous. The fact that temperament is so static and reliable in infants is why psychologists feel comfortable referring to it as the basis for what the infant’s personality will be like when they are

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