How Genes and the Environment Operate to Influence Child...

How Genes and the Environment Operate to Influence Child Development This essay will look firstly at the ideas that have prevailed throughout history, in relation to genes interacting with the environment, and the human developmental implications of this relationship. It will briefly outline the theory of Heritability, Evolution, Genetic Determination, Epigenesis, Developmental Plasticity and a ‘transactional’ model of development. Secondly the theories of Genetic determination, Epigenesis and Developmental Plasticity will be compared. Physical and psychological characteristics of child development will illuminate the differing viewpoints held by these traditions. Anatomical development, temperament and language will be used as†¦show more content†¦Darwin’s ideas being assimilated into popular culture while Lamarck’s work languished in obscurity. Darwins theory of Evolution proposed ‘natural selection’ and ‘adaptation’, that an organism could only change as a result of ‘mutationâ€⠄¢, a change in the ‘genotype’ and that mutation had to ‘infer’ an advantage in the environment (phenotype) to be selected and therefore passed on. This process according to Darwin occurred below the level of consciousness [Darwin, 1859]. The organism is in essence ‘blocked off’ from its experience, leading to Weismanns idea of a ‘barrier’ [Weismann, 1885] and the central view of the genetic paradigm, which is ‘reductionistic’. Lamarcks theory alternatively, is of ‘transformational’ development, which results from the organisms experience of its environment [Lamarck, 1809]. Its prerequisite is that of the organism being ‘open’ to the experiences of its environment. ‘Interaction’ occurs at the genetic and environmental levels. Hence logically leading to the Epigenetic paradigm, which supports the same holistic, arrangements proposed by Lamarck [Burkhardt, 1977]. Two traditions with developmental implications were influenced as a result of the differing viewpoints of Darwin and Lamarck; they were Genetic Determination and Epigenesis. Genetic Determination sees human development as reaching an ‘endpoint’; this is in essence ‘preformational’. The environment is only there to explore where children’s ‘natural’ abilities lie. Development isShow MoreRelatedThe Processes by Which Genes and Environment Operate Together to Influence Development1597 Words   |  7 PagesProcesses by Which Genes and Environment Operate Together to Influence Development Psychologists have argued for centuries over which has played the larger role in child development, heredity or environment. The British philosopher John Locke (1632 –1704) proposed one of the first theories in the seventeenth century. 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