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Nature or nurture? Are we shaped by the body we're born with, or by the people and places around us?
Why are you the person you are? Is it because of the body and brain you were born with, or because of the people and places that shaped you? This question is one of the oldest debates in the social sciences. Sociologists call it the nature-nurture debate.
Key terms:
Some things are clearly biological. Everyone is born able to feel hunger, and babies cry without being taught. But look at what people actually do with these feelings. What we eat, when we eat and how we eat are all learned. Sociologists therefore stress nurture. In Culture, Norms, Values and Customs, you saw that society is socially constructed. Nurture is how each new person comes to share in it.
Almost nobody argues for nature alone or nurture alone. Biology gives us the ability to learn. Society decides what we learn.
We cannot run an experiment that raises a child without human contact, and no one should. So sociologists look at rare, sad cases where children were kept in severe isolation. These cases must be described carefully, because the children suffered a great deal.
Genie was found in California in 1970, aged 13. She had been kept alone in a room for most of her life and had almost no contact with other people. She had no language when she was found. With help she learned many words, but she never fully mastered grammar.
Isabelle was found in Ohio, USA, in the late 1930s, aged about six. She had been kept away from most people and had not learned to speak. With a great deal of help and teaching she learned to speak within about two years.
What do these cases suggest? Being born human does not automatically make a person able to speak, share norms or fit into a group. These things have to be learned through contact with other people.
These children were also neglected and harmed, and each case is different. So we cannot be sure how much of their difficulty was caused by isolation alone. The cases are very few, which makes it hard to generalise from them.
If behaviour were mainly inborn, people everywhere would behave in the same way. They do not. What counts as normal depends on the society and on the time. Sociologists call this the relativity of culture.
Key term:
In some societies it is normal to eat with the fingers. In others people use a knife and fork or chopsticks. In some societies looking an adult in the eye is a sign of respect. In others it is seen as rude, and people look down.
In many societies, a hundred years ago it was unusual for a married woman to have a paid job. Today it is common. Smoking indoors at work was once normal in many countries. Today it is banned in many places.
This matters for identity. A child born in Brazil will normally grow up speaking Portuguese, and a child born in Japan will normally grow up speaking Japanese. They did not inherit these languages in their genes. They learned the one around them.
Socialisation starts the day we're born - a baby learns its family's way of life from the people around it
So how do people learn the way of life of their society? The answer is socialisation.
Key term:
Socialisation starts the day we are born and carries on for the rest of our lives. Through it, we learn the language we speak, how to behave and what to believe. We also learn what is seen as right and wrong. Who does the socialising, and how, comes in the next lesson, Primary and Secondary Socialisation: The Key Agencies.
You already know that norms are the rules about how to behave, and values are beliefs about what is important (Culture, Norms, Values and Customs). The key point here is that nobody is born knowing them.
This is why sociologists say identity is socially constructed. Much of who we are, such as our language, beliefs and behaviour, is shaped by the society we grow up in.
Question: A child is born in a small village and is then raised in a large city in a different country. Using ideas from this lesson, explain why the child behaves like the people in the city.
Nurture: the child learned the language and behaviour of the city, not of the village of birth.
Socialisation: the child learned the norms and values of the city's society over time.
Relativity of culture: what is normal in the city may differ from the village, so the child learned the city's version of normal.
Saying that sociologists believe biology has no effect at all. Mixing up nature (biology) and nurture (learning). Describing cases of isolation without saying what they suggest, or presenting them as proof. Saying that one society's norms are right and another's are wrong, when the point is that they are relative. Confusing socialisation with simply "making friends".
(a) Define the term socialisation. [2 marks]
(b) Give two examples of how what is seen as normal differs between societies or over time. [2 marks]
(c) Explain three reasons why sociologists argue that identity is socially constructed rather than only inborn. [6 marks]
(a) Socialisation is the lifelong process of learning (1) the norms, values and way of life of a society (1).
(b) Any two from: eating with the fingers is normal in some societies but not others (1); looking an adult in the eye is respectful in some societies but rude in others (1); married women having paid jobs was unusual in many societies a hundred years ago but is common now (1); smoking indoors at work was once normal but is now banned in many places (1).
(c) First, norms and values differ between societies (1), so they must be learned, because if they were inborn people everywhere would behave in the same way (1). Second, cases of severe isolation, such as Genie, suggest children do not develop language without human contact (1), so language is learned through nurture (1). Third, people learn the language of the society they grow up in (1), for example a child in Japan learns Japanese because of the people around them, not because of their genes (1).
In "explain" questions, make a point, then add "because" or "for example" to develop it. Each of your three reasons needs its own developed explanation to earn the full 2 marks.