Nature or Nurture

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Nature or Nurture What Causes Intelligence?

• By Madelaine Banks, Mat Sherman, Dan Ciortea

York Mills Collegiate InstituteHSP3M1Tuesday
June 2nd, 2009
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Introduction

• 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
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PART ONENEWSPAPER ARTICLES
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Study Finds First-Borns Smarter

• 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
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Textbook Justification

• 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
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Scholars Claim Brain Explains Gender Divide

• 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
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Textbook Justification

• 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
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PART TWOACADEMIC JOURNALS
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The Susie Experiment

• Method This experiment was about a girl, Susie,
  whos mother had an IQ of 40 which is considered
  retardation. She was given the best methods 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
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Textbook Justification

• 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.
  lthttp//www.gale.cengage.comgt

Madelaine Banks
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Common Beliefs on the Heredity of Human
Characteristics

• 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
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Textbook Justification

• Compares two different groups results to average
  peoples results
• Results show that the groups average scores were
  higher, probably due to their APS related
  differing from the norm
• Great example of different peoples 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
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PART THREESURVEY RESEARCH
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Hypothesis

• It was hypothesized that we will discover that
  people think nurture and environmental factors
  are greater in determining intelligence than
  nature and genetic factors.

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Survey

• We conducted a survey to discover people in our
  schools beliefs about how genetic and
  environmental factors will affect a persons
  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
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Graphs

• Question 4 Which of these factors affect
  intelligence the most?
• 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
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Graphs

• Question 6 Whos 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?
• These results show that most people think
  that the environment determined intelligence
  more than the parents intelligence. These
  results favour nurture.

Mat Sherman
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Conclusion

• 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.
• Results showed that 61 of all answers
  favoured nurture while the other 39 favoured
  nature.

Madelaine Banks