Abstract
In this essay, I explore what social science might contribute to building a better understanding of relations between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ in human development. I first outline changing scientific perspectives on the role of the environment in the developmental and behavioural sciences, beginning with a general historical view of the developmental science of human potentials in the twentieth century, and then reflecting on a call to arms against ‘toxic stress’ issued in 2012 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. I suggest that such post-genomic programmes of early intervention, which draw on emerging scientific theories of organismic plasticity and developmental malleability, raise significant social and ethical concerns. At the same time, such programmes challenge social scientists to move beyond critique and to contribute to new developmental models that deconstruct the old divide between nature and nurture. I conclude by describing efforts that posit new terms of reference and, simultaneously, new kinds of research interests and questions that are not founded upon, and are not efforts to resolve, the nature–nurture debate.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Some of this history is covered in Singh (2002), and far more completely in Shorter (1997).
Fox Keller takes the phrase ‘system of inheritance’ from Jablonka and Lamb (2005).
To be fair, this is a quotation from an interview with a journalist. Shonkoff is also the lead author of the toxic stress report in Pediatrics, which suggests a more sophisticated understanding of the science. Nevertheless, it is important to note the continued salience of claims to have discovered the ‘biology of (insert socially undesirable status or behavior)’.
Interestingly, there were no positive effects of intervention on boys born to visited mothers, which should raise a question of the overall success of the programme, given that men are more likely than women to be arrested and convicted of crimes.
References
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979) The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Champagne, F.A. (2010a) Epigenetic influence of social experiences across the lifespan. Developmental Psychobiology 52 (4): 299–311.
Champagne, F.A. (2010b) Early adversity and developmental outcomes: Interaction between genetics, epigenetics and social experiences across the lifespan. Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 (5): 564–574.
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Administration for Children and Families. (2010, January) Head Start Impact Study, Final Report. Washington DC: DHHS.
Dillon, M. (2007) Governing terror: The state of emergency of biopolitical emergence. International Political Sociology 1 (1): 7–28.
Dugdale, R. (1969 [1877] ) The Jukes: A Study of Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity, Paper 1, Georgia, USA: GSU College of Law Faculty Publications, http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/col_facpub/1.
Eckenrode, J. et al (2010) Long-term effects of prenatal and infancy nurse home visitation on the life course of youths: 19-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 164 (1): 9–15.
Fox Keller, E. (2010) The Mirage of a Space between Nature and Nurture. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press.
Francis, R.C. (2011) Epigenetics: The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance. New York: Norton.
Franklin, S. and Roberts, C. (2006) Born and Made: An Ethnography of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gaudillie`re, J.-P. and Rheinberger, H.-J. (eds.) (2004) From Molecular Genetics to Genomics: The Mapping Cultures of Twentieth Century Genetics. New York: Routledge.
Goddard, H.H. (1912) The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble Mindedness. New York: MacMillan.
Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Re-Invention of Nature. New York: Routledge.
Harrington, A. (2008) The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. New York: Norton.
Healy, D. (1999) The Anti-Depressant Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Horowitz, A. (2002) Creating Mental Illness. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Jablonka, E. and Lamb, M. (2005) Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kristof, N.D. (2012) The poverty solution that starts with a hug. New York Times Sunday Review, 7 January, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-poverty-solution-that-starts-with-a-hug.html.
Kutchins, H. and Kirk, S.A. (1999) Making Us Crazy. New York: Constable.
Laing, R.D. and Esterson, A. (1970) Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics. London: Penguin.
Lederbogen, F. et al (2011) City living and urban upbringing affect neural social stress processing in humans. Nature 474 (7352): 498–501.
Lock, M. (2001) The tempering of medical anthropology: Troubling natural categories. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 15 (4): 478–492.
Lombroso, C. (2004 [1876]) Criminal Man. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press.
Low, S.M. (1981) The meaning of nervios: A sociocultural analysis of symptom presentation in San Jose, Costa Rica. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry 5 (1): 25–47.
Niewohner, J. (2011) Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu. BioSocieties 6 (4): 279–298.
Roepstorff, A., Niewohner, J. and Beck, S. (2010) Enculturing brains through patterned practices. Neural Networks 23 (8–9): 1051–1059.
Shonkoff, J.P. et al (2011) Early childhood adversity, toxic stress and the role of the pediatrician: Translating developmental science into lifelong health. Pediatrics 26 (December): e232–e246.
Shorter, E. (1997) A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. New York: Wiley.
Shostak, S. (forthcoming 2013) Defining Vulnerabilities: Genes, the Environment, and the Politics of Population Health. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Showalter, E. (1998) Hystories: Hysteria, Gender and Culture. New York: Picador.
Singh, I. (2002) Bad boys, good mothers and the ‘miracle’ of Ritalin. Science in Context 15 (4): 577–603.
Singh, I. (2011) A disorder of anger and aggression: Children's perspectives on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the UK. Social Science and Medicine, Special Issue on Diagnosis 73 (6): 889–896.
Skinner, B.F. (1938) The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis. New York: Appleton-Century.
Skinner, B.F. (2005 [1948]) Walden Two. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.
Sulloway, F. (1992) Freud, Biologist of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Szasz, T. (1961) The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Harper & Row.
Walsh, P., Elsabbagh, M., Bolton, P. and Singh, I. (2011) In search of biomarkers for autism: Scientific, policy and ethical challenges. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 12 (10): 603–612.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Singh, I. Human development, nature and nurture: Working beyond the divide. BioSocieties 7, 308–321 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2012.20
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2012.20