Nature vs Nurture

Nature vs nurture has long been debated and many are coming to the conclusion now that it is more nature AND nurture that affect us equally rather than one or the other. Our book describes the case of Anna, a little girl who was kept in an attic her whole life and never had any personal interaction whatsoever. Anna was not able to communicate and did not develop how she should have. She eventually died and her caregivers concluded that her death was a direct effect of not being socialized. I am very interested in the whole nature vs. nurture debate and there was one case that I learned about a couple of years ago that really sparked my interest. This case is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the Anna case. In Anna's case nurture was what she lacked, where in this case nurture is what causes harm.




Brian and 'Brenda' Reimer

 

David Reimer

That is the case of David Reimer. A little background info:
David was a twin. He was born as Bruce and his twin's name was Brian. The twins had a urinary problem and were recommended for a circumcision at 8 months old. Bruce went first and there was a big complication. His reproductive body parts were damaged beyond repair. The parents decided not to have the surgery on Brian and his urinary problem eventually cleared on its own. The parents worried about Bruce not being able to have sexual satisfaction down the road. They took Bruce to  Dr. Money at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Money was a psychologist whose speciality was gender identity. He believed that through social learning(nurture) that Bruce could have gender reassignment surgery and could live happily as a female. Bruce had the surgery to remove what remained of his male parts when he was 22 months old. This was the perfect experiment for Dr. Money. He had done the surgery and studied children before but it had been on children that had had some sort of deformity at birth. Bruce was a good candidate for new research because he had no deformity at birth and his twin brother Brian would be the perfect control for the experiment. As the experiment went on, Bruce-now Brenda- was forced to do things that would be considered torture today. He was forced to rehearse sexual acts with his brother where he was the "female part" and his brother was the "male part". One example- Bruce was forced to lay down with his legs spread while Brian was on top of him. The family continued to take Bruce to Dr. Money over the years. Dr. Money wrote about his findings and said that Bruce aka Brenda was clearly a little girl and was so different from her twin brother. The parents later claimed that they often lied about the success of the procedure. Bruce did not identify with his female gender. When he was forced to wear dresses, he felt completely embarrassed. He was given estrogen and developed breasts yet still in no way felt like a girl. He eventually told his parents that he would commit suicide if they made him see Dr. Money again. His parents told him of the surgery and how he was originally born a boy. Bruce decided to begin living as a male at age 14 and changed his name from Brenda to David. He eventually got married and became a stepfather.

"You're always going to see people that are going to say well the Dave Reimer case could have been successful. I'm living proof, and if you're not going to take my word as gospel, because I have lived through it, who else are you going to listen to? Who else is there? I've lived through it. Like, is it going to take somebody to wind up killing themselves, shooting themselves in the head for people to listen?"- David Reimer

At age 38, David shot himself in a grocery store parking lot. His brother Brian had committed suicide 2 years earlier.

I find this case to be beyond sad. David never had a chance to live a normal life. He spend his entire childhood feeling like he couldn't be who he was born to be - and he was right. Obviously nurture is important. Anna was never nurtured and did not have the socialization she needed to survive. David, on the other hand, was forced to depend solely on nurture and none on nature. Nature is also important. Nature is who we are. We are born with certain characteristics that no amount of nurture will get rid of. Dr. Money and David's parents assumed that as long as David was dressed in pink and forced to play with dolls that he would identify as a girl. As our book describes, gender roles play a big part in kids learning what is acceptable for their gender. A commercial for a baby doll will most likely have a girl playing with the doll, while a commercial for toy cars will have a boy. We learn by seeing these types of things what we should like. However, nurture can't account for everything. We have some things ingrained in us when we are born. David knew that even though he was expected to like dolls but he didn't and there was a reason why. No matter how much his parents and doctors told him he liked dolls it wasn't going to change the fact that he didn't. That's just not how it works and I'm sure his family found that out the hard way after both of their children killed themselves. I agree with most current psychologists and sociologists when they say that a balance of nature and nurture is key. Both are important, but one can't overpower the other.

Schillo, Keith. 2011. Nature or Nurture: The Case of the Boy Who Became a Girl. National Center  for Case Study Teaching in Science. University of Buffalo, State University of New York.

         http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/gender_reassignment.pdf

2005. Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis. BBC. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dr_money_prog_summary.shtml 



Advertising to Children





Advertising has a big impact on our lives whether we want it to or not. Even as adults, we tend to gravitate towards products that are more colorful or catch our attention. This is even more true for children. Advertising to children has been a very controversial issue. Kids are extremely influential and they want anything and everything that is presented to them in a way that is exciting or appealing to the senses.

 

Just look at the two cereals pictured above. They are both made by Kellogg's but one has much more nutritional value than the other. Mini-Wheats contains no sugar, while Froot Loops' sugar content is 41%. I can't speak for all kids but I know for a fact which one the 2 year old and 4 year old I babysit would choose while standing in the cereal aisle at Publix. Companies know who their audience is and they know exactly how to appeal to them. The bad thing is, while the companies are just trying to make money, they are really one of the reasons childhood obesity is so high. 15% of children ages 5-11 are obese. That number is obviously way too high. Advertising is not the only thing that is making kids overweight, but a change needs to be made as far as making children want things that are bad for their health. Disney recently made an announcement and said that they would only start showing advertisements that meet their nutritional requirements. This is a really big step forward. Kids watch a lot of TV these days and most of the advertisements they see are going to be on TV. By changing these ads to healthy items, Disney is really going to help change kids' eating habits who watch their channel, listen to their radio station, or visit their website.

 

Food isn't the only place where advertising is affecting kids. Commercials on TV and displays in stores of toys make children want things they don't need. Not only does advertising instill in them a craving for material items, it also makes them feel inferior if they can't have those items. We've all seen that one kid in the toy aisle that is having a meltdown because their parents won't buy them something. Parents need to teach their kids that they can't always have everything they want. It's a necessary quality to have, but it's not the easiest thing to teach when every commercial on Nickelodeon or Disney has 4 or 5 kids playing with the newest toy. I'm not going to act like my parents didn't spoil me as a child. They probably did. But I also got told "no" plenty. I knew that I couldn't have every single thing I wanted. These days, kids' "toys" are starting to include things like iPads, iPods, Wiis, etc. So, not only are kids' interests in these items growing from advertisements of cool games and apps, but their parents have to dish out a whole lot more money if they decide to buy an iPad instead of a Barbie doll like when we were kids.

 

Companies are never going to stop advertising. It's what they have to do to make money and that's completely understandable. However, they do need to change some of the ways in which they go about it. They need to be more honest with their ads. Also, as far as food items go, they should make healthier items that are directed towards children. Parents also need to start telling their kids "no" more. It's hard now because they are so innocent and cute and sweet but one day they will be adults, and let's face it- we all have met someone(most likely more than one) who had never been told "no" until they were out in the real world and they still expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. No one wants that to be their kid, so starting while they are young will benefit them in the long run. As adults, we should watch out for these advertising ploys and try not to let them pull us in and accomplish exactly what they want.

 

http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/3005

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/story/2012-06-05/disney-advertising-to-kids/55385470/1

 



Development

This semester I am taking a class called Infant and Child Development. One of the big things we are doing for the class is training to administer the Denver 2 assessment to children. The Denver 2 is a test that essentially measures the development of kids from infancy to 6 years of age. While it is not an IQ test, it can detect areas that a child may have a delay in or that they might be advanced in.

Our class will be administering the test at the Children's Learning Center (CLC). We will first visit the CLC 10 different days for observation. We will watch the children, see how they communicate with others, try to guage what "normal" is for them, and let them get used to being around us. After these observation days, we will start testing. Our class will be testing the infant-3 year old age group.

We will be testing the child's motor skills, speech, cognition and other aspects of their development. If the child fails or refuses to do any item on the list that is to the left of their "age line" (a line drawn on the test document that shows where 75-90 percent of children the same age are developmentally) it is considered a delay. If the child refuses or fails an item that falls on the age line, it is considered a caution. The test continues until the child fails 3 items in a row. Any item the child passes to the right of the age line is an area in which the child will be considered advanced.

Once we are done testing, we will write up a report on the child's development. The parent as well as the CLC will receive a copy. It is going to be a lot of work, but I have already learned a lot. I'm excited to start testing and see how it goes!