Chapter 2
Nature, nurture and social behaviour:
Explaining the psyche:
➢ One approach to understand how people think, feel and act is to try to understand
what the human psyche or human mind is designed for
Psyche= A broader term for the mind, encompassing emotions, desires, perceptions and
all other psychological processes.
✓ To understand something, you need to understand what it was designed to do
✓ We turn to nature and culture because those are what made the psyche the way it is
✓ If the psyche was designed to do something in particular, then nature and culture
designed it for a purpose
Nature:
• The nature explanations say that people are born a certain way: Their genes,
hormones, brain structure and other processes dictate how they will choose and act.
Culture:
• The cultural explanations focus on what people learn from their parents, from
society and from their own experiences.
Nature and culture have shaped each other.
▪ Nature has prepared human beings specifically for culture.
▪ Characteristics that set humans apart from other animals
include:
➢ Language
➢ A flexible self that can hold multiple roles
➢ An advanced ability to understand each other’s
mental states
▪ These characteristics are mainly there to enable people to
create and sustain culture.
▪ This interaction between nature and culture is the key to
understanding how people think.
Nature defined:
Nature: The physical world around us, including its laws and processes. (includes
the entire world that would be there even if no human beings existed)
,Nature includes:
✓ Trees and grass
✓ Insects and animals (elephants)
✓ Gravity, The weather
✓ Hunger and thirst
✓ Birth and death, People
✓ Atoms and molecules
✓ Laws of physics and chemistry
Evolution, and doing what’s natural:
➢ Over the past two decades, many social psychologists have begun to
help explain social behaviour
Theory of evolution: A theory proposed by Charles Darwin to explain
how change occurs in nature.
➢ Over thousands of years, a plant or animal may evolve into a
somewhat different kind of creature.
➢ Human beings and the great apes evolved as part of the same family
tree.
➢ Human beings may be different from all other animals, but we are
animals, nonetheless.
➢ We have the same wants, needs and problems that most other animals
have.
▪ We need food and water on a regular basis.
▪ We need sleep.
▪ We need shelter and warmth.
▪ We need air.
▪ We suffer illnesses and injuries and must find ways to
recover from them.
➢ Our interactions with others are sometimes characterised by
sexual desire, competition, aggressive impulses, family ties or
friendly companionship.
➢ An important feature of most loving things, including animals
and thus humans, is the drive to prolong life.
➢ Two ways to do this:
1. Go on living
• Death has always been a disturbing threat.
2. Reproduction
• Life makes new life.
Change is another common trait of living things:
, ➢ Each living thing changes as it grows older.
➢ Generation changes: baby has both parents’ genes and
creates a totally new person.
• Powerful forces react to these random changes: As a result, some
random changes will disappear, whereas others will endure
NATURAL SELECTION =The process whereby those members
of a species that survive and reproduce most effectively are the
ones that pass along their genes to future generations. (Decides
which traits will disappear and which will continue)
Two criteria:
1. Survival
2. Reproduction
• A trait that improves survival or reproduction will tend to last for many
generations and become more common.
• A trait that reduces one’s chances for survival or reproduction will
probably not become common.
- Biological success of any trait is measured in these terms.
SURVIVAL = Living longer.
✓ Depends in part on the circumstances in your environment.
• Herbert Spencer = ‘survival of the fittest’ – A phrase to describe natural
selection.
➢ Biologists have shifted their emphasis from survival to
reproduction as the single most important factor in natural selection.
REPRODUCTION =Producing babies that survive long enough to also
reproduce.
✓ Reproductive success consists of creating many offspring
who will in turn create many offspring.
MUTATION= A new gene or combination of genes.
How does biological evolution produce changes?
➢ The causal processes depend entirely on random changes to physical
elements, such as genes. The person is programmed to respond in a
certain way.
➢ Molecules, chemicals, electrical impulses in the body and other
physical mechanisms produce the results.
, ➢ Behaviour changes because the physical makeup of the new born
individual is different.
Social Animals:
➢ Being social provides benefits.
➢ Being social is a strategy that enables some species to survive and
reproduce effectively.
➢ That is the biological starting point of social psychology: being social
improves survival and reproduction.
➢ The disadvantage of being social is that it is more difficult to achieve
than solitary life.
➢ Social animals must have something inside them that makes them
recognise each other and want to be together.
▪ They must have something that prompts them to work together, such as
automatic impulses to copy what the others are doing.
▪ They must have ways to resolve the conflicts that always arise in social
life.
▪ They need something similar to self-control to enable them to adjust to group life.
▪ They need complex powerful brains.
The social brain:
➢ What is inside enables the creature to satisfy its needs, and ultimately,
to survive and reproduce.
➢ Social animals accomplish those things by means of social interaction.
Much of what goes on inside the human mind is designed to help the
person relate to others.
➢ Social psychologists spend much time studying people’s inner
processes, including their thoughts and feelings and how their brains
work. =Inner processes serve interpersonal functions.
➢ Social animals require brains with additional, flexible capabilities.
Robin Dunbar compared brain sizes of many different species to see what
behavioural differences went with bigger brains.
✓ Bigger brains were mainly linked to having larger and more complex
social groups.
✓ Small-brained animals tend to live alone or in small, simple groups,
whereas bigger-brained, presumably smarter animals have more
relationships with each other and more complicated groups.
✓ People with bigger social networks have been found to be bigger in
some key brain parts, notably the orbital prefrontal cortex.
✓ The human brain evolved mainly to enable human beings to have rich,
complex social lives.
✓ For understanding each other.
✓ Social brain
Nature, nurture and social behaviour:
Explaining the psyche:
➢ One approach to understand how people think, feel and act is to try to understand
what the human psyche or human mind is designed for
Psyche= A broader term for the mind, encompassing emotions, desires, perceptions and
all other psychological processes.
✓ To understand something, you need to understand what it was designed to do
✓ We turn to nature and culture because those are what made the psyche the way it is
✓ If the psyche was designed to do something in particular, then nature and culture
designed it for a purpose
Nature:
• The nature explanations say that people are born a certain way: Their genes,
hormones, brain structure and other processes dictate how they will choose and act.
Culture:
• The cultural explanations focus on what people learn from their parents, from
society and from their own experiences.
Nature and culture have shaped each other.
▪ Nature has prepared human beings specifically for culture.
▪ Characteristics that set humans apart from other animals
include:
➢ Language
➢ A flexible self that can hold multiple roles
➢ An advanced ability to understand each other’s
mental states
▪ These characteristics are mainly there to enable people to
create and sustain culture.
▪ This interaction between nature and culture is the key to
understanding how people think.
Nature defined:
Nature: The physical world around us, including its laws and processes. (includes
the entire world that would be there even if no human beings existed)
,Nature includes:
✓ Trees and grass
✓ Insects and animals (elephants)
✓ Gravity, The weather
✓ Hunger and thirst
✓ Birth and death, People
✓ Atoms and molecules
✓ Laws of physics and chemistry
Evolution, and doing what’s natural:
➢ Over the past two decades, many social psychologists have begun to
help explain social behaviour
Theory of evolution: A theory proposed by Charles Darwin to explain
how change occurs in nature.
➢ Over thousands of years, a plant or animal may evolve into a
somewhat different kind of creature.
➢ Human beings and the great apes evolved as part of the same family
tree.
➢ Human beings may be different from all other animals, but we are
animals, nonetheless.
➢ We have the same wants, needs and problems that most other animals
have.
▪ We need food and water on a regular basis.
▪ We need sleep.
▪ We need shelter and warmth.
▪ We need air.
▪ We suffer illnesses and injuries and must find ways to
recover from them.
➢ Our interactions with others are sometimes characterised by
sexual desire, competition, aggressive impulses, family ties or
friendly companionship.
➢ An important feature of most loving things, including animals
and thus humans, is the drive to prolong life.
➢ Two ways to do this:
1. Go on living
• Death has always been a disturbing threat.
2. Reproduction
• Life makes new life.
Change is another common trait of living things:
, ➢ Each living thing changes as it grows older.
➢ Generation changes: baby has both parents’ genes and
creates a totally new person.
• Powerful forces react to these random changes: As a result, some
random changes will disappear, whereas others will endure
NATURAL SELECTION =The process whereby those members
of a species that survive and reproduce most effectively are the
ones that pass along their genes to future generations. (Decides
which traits will disappear and which will continue)
Two criteria:
1. Survival
2. Reproduction
• A trait that improves survival or reproduction will tend to last for many
generations and become more common.
• A trait that reduces one’s chances for survival or reproduction will
probably not become common.
- Biological success of any trait is measured in these terms.
SURVIVAL = Living longer.
✓ Depends in part on the circumstances in your environment.
• Herbert Spencer = ‘survival of the fittest’ – A phrase to describe natural
selection.
➢ Biologists have shifted their emphasis from survival to
reproduction as the single most important factor in natural selection.
REPRODUCTION =Producing babies that survive long enough to also
reproduce.
✓ Reproductive success consists of creating many offspring
who will in turn create many offspring.
MUTATION= A new gene or combination of genes.
How does biological evolution produce changes?
➢ The causal processes depend entirely on random changes to physical
elements, such as genes. The person is programmed to respond in a
certain way.
➢ Molecules, chemicals, electrical impulses in the body and other
physical mechanisms produce the results.
, ➢ Behaviour changes because the physical makeup of the new born
individual is different.
Social Animals:
➢ Being social provides benefits.
➢ Being social is a strategy that enables some species to survive and
reproduce effectively.
➢ That is the biological starting point of social psychology: being social
improves survival and reproduction.
➢ The disadvantage of being social is that it is more difficult to achieve
than solitary life.
➢ Social animals must have something inside them that makes them
recognise each other and want to be together.
▪ They must have something that prompts them to work together, such as
automatic impulses to copy what the others are doing.
▪ They must have ways to resolve the conflicts that always arise in social
life.
▪ They need something similar to self-control to enable them to adjust to group life.
▪ They need complex powerful brains.
The social brain:
➢ What is inside enables the creature to satisfy its needs, and ultimately,
to survive and reproduce.
➢ Social animals accomplish those things by means of social interaction.
Much of what goes on inside the human mind is designed to help the
person relate to others.
➢ Social psychologists spend much time studying people’s inner
processes, including their thoughts and feelings and how their brains
work. =Inner processes serve interpersonal functions.
➢ Social animals require brains with additional, flexible capabilities.
Robin Dunbar compared brain sizes of many different species to see what
behavioural differences went with bigger brains.
✓ Bigger brains were mainly linked to having larger and more complex
social groups.
✓ Small-brained animals tend to live alone or in small, simple groups,
whereas bigger-brained, presumably smarter animals have more
relationships with each other and more complicated groups.
✓ People with bigger social networks have been found to be bigger in
some key brain parts, notably the orbital prefrontal cortex.
✓ The human brain evolved mainly to enable human beings to have rich,
complex social lives.
✓ For understanding each other.
✓ Social brain
