Transcript PowerPoint Presentation - Nature or Nurture… What Causes

York Mills Collegiate Institute
HSP3M1
Tuesday June 2nd, 2009

The nature nurture debate has been going on for
years

Many researchers and scientists argue about what
affects intelligence more

After this presentation maybe you will have some
knowledge and a better opinion about this topic
Madelaine Banks

This article is about a study conducted In 1973 at the Institute
of Personality and Social Research in Berkeley, California
among 400,000 people. showing that after the first-born,
intelligence among children decreases

On average study found that first-borns have a higher IQ by 2
points.

People argue that this is true because first-born children are
given more parental attention, fostering intelligence and they
also tutor their younger siblings.
Crenson, M. (2005, February 28). Scholars Claim Brain Explains Gender Divide. Associated Press Times
Union, Albany. Retrieved March 31st, 2009, from http://www.elibrary.com
Madelaine Banks

This would be a good addition to the textbook because it
discusses the environmental side of intelligence.

It shows interesting and factual information about birth order,
which is an important topic.

This article also gives points as to why a first-born child may be
smarter than his younger siblings

This article is reliable because it was published in the Chicago
Tribune by a regular author.
Mitchum, R. (2007, June 22). Study Finds First Born Smartest, Research Supports Nurture over Nature. Chicago
Tribune. Retrieved April 2, 2009, from http://www.elibrary.com
Madelaine Banks

Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggests differences in
intelligence between genders

Differences caused by different hormones/levels between
genders

Males have greater range of IQ while women tend to stay
average

Written by M. Crenson in February 2005
Crenson, M. (2005, February 28). Scholars Claim Brain Explains Gender Divide. Associated Press Times Union,
Albany. Retrieved March 31st, 2009, from http://www.elibrary.com
Mathew Sherman

Gender divide when it comes to human brain functions

Evidence that nature plays a role in defining intelligence

Help students better understand a natural factor given to
specific sets of humans

Valuable and interesting for students to learn
Crenson, M. (2005, February 28). Scholars Claim Brain Explains Gender Divide. Associated Press Times Union, Albany.
Retrieved March 31st, 2009, from http://www.elibrary.com
Mathew Sherman

Method: This experiment was about a girl, Susie,
who’s mother had an IQ of 40 which is considered
retardation. She was given the best method’s of
fostering intelligence her entire life instead of going to
regular school.

Hypothesis: The experimenter thought that these
methods would increase her intelligence so she could
be smarter than her mother.

Conclusion: It was concluded that the methods did
help Susie and she ended up with an IQ that was 80
points higher than her mothers.
Madelaine Banks

This article would be a good addition to the textbook because it
discusses the nurture side of intelligence.

This relates to the subject of nature not being restrictive in
intelligence.

This article also comes from the reliable resource Science
containing peer-reviewed journals such as this.

Even though the experiment was not conducted by the writer,
she reports on the article with a lot of knowledge and accuracy.
Wickelgren, Ingrid. (1999, March). Nurture Helps Mold Able Minds (Environmental influences on
intelligence levels). Science. 283.5409 p1832(1). Retrieved April. 20, 2009, from Gale AcademicOne
Database. <http://www.gale.cengage.com>
Madelaine Banks




Objective:
Look into the beliefs of two groups on subjects of genetics
Social parents of an adoptive child and people with an absent
genetic parent subjected to compare to average people
Method:
Personal interviews in which subjects answered how severely
they felt heredity impacted 16 human characteristics on a scale
up to five
Conclusions:
Average persons score near the middle; people from the two
subject groups scored higher on average
Meerum Terwogt, Mark; Hoeksma, Jan; Koops, Willem (1993, Nov.). Common beliefs about the heredity of
human characteristics. British Journal of Psychology. Retrieved Apr. 20th, 2009, from Knowledge Ontario
Databases.
Mathew Sherman

Compares two different groups’ results to average people’s
results

Results show that the groups’ average scores were higher,
probably due to their APS related differing from the norm

Great example of different people’s perspectives on how
much nature determines intelligence
Meerum Terwogt, Mark; Hoeksma, Jan; Koops, Willem (1993, Nov.). Common beliefs about the heredity of
human characteristics. British Journal of Psychology. Retrieved Apr. 20th, 2009, from Knowledge Ontario
Databases.
Mathew Sherman

It was hypothesized that we will discover
that people think nurture and
environmental factors are greater in
determining intelligence than nature
and genetic factors.

We conducted a survey to discover people in our
school’s beliefs about how genetic and
environmental factors will affect a person’s
intelligence

We gave out thirty surveys consisting of 10 questions
each.

Each survey was comprised of yes/no, multiple
choice, and open-ended questions.

We recorded our results of the most important
questions using graphs.
Mat Sherman
Question 4: Which of these factors affect intelligence the most?
Genetics
15%
Education
40%
Socialization
45%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
These results showed that most people thought education
and socialization were the greatest intelligence determining
factors. This shows that nurture is being supported.
Madelaine Banks

Question 6: Who’s intelligence will be greater; a person from
an abusive home with intelligent parents, or a person from a
loving home with parents of average intelligence?
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
75%
30%
20%
10%
25%
0%
Abusive Home/Intelligent
Parents
Caring Home/ Average
Parents
These results show that most people think that the
environment determined intelligence more than the parent’s
intelligence. These results favour nurture.
Mat Sherman


It was concluded that most people thought that nurture was
a greater intelligence determining factor than nature
We categorized our answers into nature and nurture and
came up with a summary graph of all of our answers.
39%
61%
Nature
Nurture
Results showed that 61% of all answers favoured nurture
while the other 39% favoured nature.
Madelaine Banks