PSY290H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Phenylalanine, Ontogeny, Heritability
Document Summary
We tend to think in terms of mutually exclusive dichotomies (right-wrong, good-bad etc), for the sake of simplicity. This type of thinking can be seen in two of the most common questions asked about behaviour: Cartesian dualism (the idea that the universe is composed of mind and matter) perpetrated the idea that human mind and body are separate. To this day, many ppl think that there is a part of the human activity that transcends physiological explanation. Example: chimpanzee being self aware when it looks in the mirror and touching it"s dyed eyebrow while looking in the mirror. Most early na experimental psychologists were heavy on the nurture side, examples being behaviourists thinking they could shape babies to be whoever they nurtured them to be. Seeing that factors other than genetics and learning (such as nutrition, stress, fetal environment etc) also affect behavioural development, this issue turned into a dichotomy of genetic factors vs experience .
