Child Development class subject
This assignment will demonstrate your understanding of how heredity and environment work together in an individual’s development. Check your post against the rubric for grading prior to submitting your work so that you will know exactly what is expected for full credit. Number your responses in the same order as below.
- Personal Trait: Select one personal epigenetic trait that is influenced by both heredity and your life experiences. Examples of traits might be physical such as health or physical ability, cognitive such as linguistic ability or academic success, or psychosocial such as shyness, helpfulness, or outgoing nature. Make sure to pick a trait where you can identify both some hereditary influence (someone else in your family shares this trait) AND the influence of your life experiences (things you did as you were growing up that built upon or shaped this trait).
- Identify the Nature (heredity) aspect by describing a family member who has the same or a similar trait.
- Identify the Nurture (environmental) aspect by describing your life experiences or opportunities that helped to develop the trait over time.
- Identify ONE of the theoretical perspectives from the list below that might be used to explain this trait. You will have to look back to chapter 1’s reading to review the focus of each of the theories. Remember, as with any trait there are always multiple ways to view and analyze so it is true that more than one theory could apply, but what is important for this assignment is that you pick one and explain WHY you think this could apply to your trait.
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- Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
- Social Learning Theory (Bandura)
- Sociocultural (Vygotsky)
If you were not raised by your biological parents, consider if you have any trait that your biological parents do not. Sometimes this is temperament, ability, skill, or interest. In this way, you can still identify the biological influence on a trait. You can still describe your life experiences that contributed to this trait, and also identify an applicable theory.
Alternatively, if you can not identify a trait you do not share with your biological parents you can select a trait that appears to be something your bio and raising parents had in common. And then address the other parts of the assignment as well.
