Cognitive Development: Nature vs. Nurture Debate in Children

This essay delves into the multifaceted realm of cognitive development in children, examining the enduring debate between nature and nurture and its impact on a child's cognitive growth. The essay explores the contributions of prominent theorists such as Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Erik Erikson, Freud, Kohlberg, and Bandura, highlighting their diverse perspectives on how children learn, develop, and interact with their environment. It also discusses psychological approaches to cognitive development, addressing issues like cognitive delay, environmental influences, and the significance of a supportive environment. Furthermore, the essay includes a discussion of a psychological dilemma, providing insights into moral reasoning, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of early intervention and a nurturing environment for optimal cognitive development. The essay also references research models and studies related to cognitive development and anxiety disorders in children.

Running head: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
1.1 The key issues regarding the Nature Vs Nurture debate
The key issues regarding the nature and nurture debate is whether human culture, personality
and behavior are caused by nature or nurture. In this debate nature is portrayed as the genetic or
the hormone based behavior and nurture is defined as the environmental exposure and
experience.
1.2 Nature vs. nurture argument
Nature vs. nurture argument is one of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology.
Each of the side supports some good points and it is really difficult to conclude whether the
cognitive development of a child depends upon the gene or on the environment he is being
exposed to. The physical features may be identical to the parents like the eye color, hair and
some more but the environment obviously have an impact on the behavior of a certain person.
THE NATURE THEORY
The different traits present in the human beings like the color of the eye, height, ear size,
hair color, baldness are dependent upon the expression of the genes located in the chromosomes,
however it is still unknown whether certain factors like the intelligence, personality, sexual
orientation, behavior are also coded in the DNA (Powell, K., 2012).
One of the controversial issue against the nature theory is the presence of the ‘gay gene ’
that explains that gays are born in that way, although there are no strong evidences in support of
this fact. Another issue is that, the various criminal acts can be justified by the presence of the
‘behavioral genes’ once the scientific world have proven the authenticity of the fact.

2COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
On the other hand, the existence of the behavioral genes can be evident if we look at the fraternal
twins (Powell, K., 2012). In some cases if the fraternal twins are brought up separately, they
often show the same characteristics and responses as if they have been brought up together. This
is how the nature theory goes.
THE NURTURE THEORY
The nurture theory supports that genes might be responsible for the presence of the
abstract trait, but environment plays the real roles when it comes to the behaviors (Powell, K.,
2012). This involves the use of the training in order to induce a new behavior in a child. As said
by the famous psychologist John Watson, the environmental factors take a stronger side in the
Nature Vs Nurture debate. According to him a baby randomly chosen can be trained to become
any type of specialist, which depends on the training. He said that he would be able to train him
regardless of his potential, race and talents. It can be true that fraternal twins show similar
behaviors even when raised apart, but changes in the behavior would always exist depending
upon the environmental exposure (Powell, K., 2012).
Thus in the end, one is still left with open end questions and confusions and the debate would
just continue forever unless any such valid evidences are available.
2.1. 5 main theorists in cognitive development of infants and young child
1. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive development in children.
2. Lev Vygotsky who developed the different Zones of the proximal development
3. Erik Erikson’s theory of Psycosocial behavior

3COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
4. Freud’s theory of Psycosexual development.
5. Kohlberg’s theory of Moral development.
2.2. Theories of developmental and cognitive practitioners.
1. Cognitive developmental theory proposed by Jean Piaget (Baldwin. 1967)
Cognitive study is the scientific study of the mental function, which includes the learning,
reasoning, memory, attention, perception and decision making. The modern concept of cognition
rests on the foundation that brain can be assessed as a complex computing system. Piaget has
proposed 4 stages of cognitive development. They are as follows-
The sensorimotor stage, the pre operational stage, concrete operational stage and the
formal operational stage.
According to Piaget, cognitive development can be defined as a progressive
reorganization of the different mental processes that might occur due to biological maturation or
environmental experience.
2. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development (Baldwin. 1967)
Kohlberg discovered that children are confronted with several moral issues, and the
dilemma faced by them whether to act positively and negatively depends on certain factors.
Kohlberg proposed different levels and the stages of Moral development (Mooney 2013).
Level 1. Preconventional morality

4COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
Stage 1. Orientation of Punishment-Obedience
Stage 2. Orientation of Instrumental Relativist
Level 2. Conventional morality
Stage 3. Good boy –nice girl Orientation
Stage 4. Orientation of Law and order
Level 3 Post conventional Morality
Stage 5. Orientation of social contact
Stage 6. Orientation of universal ethical principles.
3. Erikson’s Psychosocial stages of development (Cherry. 2012).
According to Erikson, personality develops in a series of stages in young children. Social
experiences impact on the life of a human being across his whole life span. There are 8 stages
that show the development of a child. They are as follows-
 Trust vs. Mistrust- It occurs during the infancy. Babies should learn to trust their parent,
if not they would develop distrust and would view the world as inconsistent.
 Autonomy Vs. shame- occurs in the toddler age. Children learn to eat and do things on
their own, or they can feel ashamed or doubt their own existence.
 Initiative Vs guilt- Occurs in the pre school stage. Children take initiative to carry out
plans (Cherry. 2012).

5COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
 Industry Vs inferiority- Occurs in the school age (5-11 years). They try to do according to
the rules set at home or at home, lest the child might start thinking himself to be inferior.
 Identity Vs. Role confusion- this occurs at the adolescent period. At this stage they obtain
a sense of identity, else can become confused about his role in life.
 Intimacy Vs. Isolation- It occurs during the young adult hood. At this stage a person
might develop a joint entity with a partner or else can stay away from meaningful
relationships.
 Generativity Vs. Stagnation- It occurs during the middle adulthood (40-65 years). Can
develop thoughts about helping the next generation or can become stagnant and self
centered.
 Integrity Vs despair- Occurs in late adulthood. The understanding and acceptance of the
meanings of temporary life.
4. Bandura’s Social learning Theory
Bandura’s social learning theory depicts that people learn from each other by imitation,
observation and modeling (Crain 2015). This theory is often considered as a bridge between the
cognitive and the behaviorist learning theories as it includes memory, attention and motivation.
This theory explains behavior of human being in terms of reciprocal interaction between the
behavioral, cognitive and environmental factors. Bandura proposed ‘reciprocal determinism’,
which implies that behavior of a person both influences and is influenced by social environment
(Cherry. 2012).
5. A theory of Cognitive dissonance by Leo Festinger

6COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
This theory concerns regarding the relationships between cognitions. It refers to
situations which involves conflicting attitudes and behaviors. This can produce unpleasant
feeling which can lead to an alteration in the attitude of a person to reduce the feeling of
discomfort (Cherry. 2012). For example, when a person smokes (behavior) and he knows well
that it can cause cancer (cognition). According to Festinger, every person develops an inner drive
to hold the attitudes and beliefs in concord and avoid discord (or dissonance) (Crain 2015).
2.3 Psychological dilemma
This report focuses on a psychological dilemma (Mooney 2013). For example, if a person
steals a drug. In Europe, a woman was gradually dying out of a special kind of undiscovered
cancer. The drug for this type of cancer was not available except that a scientist in town has
discovered a drug. The scientist was charging ten times than the original cost. The husband of the
dying woman was poor and hence cannot afford. So, the man broke into the laboratory of the
scientist to steal the drug for his wife. Now the dilemma is, should the husband have done that?
According to Kohlberg, there were 6 stages (Thompson 2012)–
Stage 1. Obedience and punishment orientation- It explains that a Child might say that what the
husband did was wrong, as it is against the law. This is because a child does what elders say.
Stage 2 Individualism and Exchange.
Some children might think that the person ‘might’ be right in choosing her wife’s life over social
punishment. In this stage it can be said that they are speaking as isolated individual rather than as
a member of the society.

7COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
Stage 4. Some might think that the husband is absolutely right in stealing the drug. Here morality
and rights take some priority over particular laws and the society.
So the dilemma has been discussed in the light of Kohlberg’s theory.
3.1. Psychological approaches
Cognitive development refers to how a child understands, memorizes, and learns as he
grows gradually. A child might face from cognitive and developmental delay due to many
reasons.
Some form of stress like the first day at the school without an adult support can have a
negative impact on child brain (Crain 2015). According to researches, stressful difficulties may
come from exposure to violence, parent substance abuse, economic hardship in the family,
emotional or physical abuse, negligence from family, chronic diseases (Bjorklund 2013). A child
living in a stressful environment would weaken the brain activity of the child and expose him to
the risk of cognitive impairment.
Child living in a single parent home can suffer from cognitive issues in comparison to the
ones living in the two parent’s home. Therefore care should be taken to provide a healthy
environment to the child to cater to its cognitive growth. A positive adult child relationship is
necessary to promote cognitive development in a child (Carr. 2015). Parents can foster
development in the child by creating a daily routine, social interaction.
A child coming from an economically challenged background is more likely to develop
cognitive and developmental problems. A child then will not get access to nutritious food, proper

8COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
health care services, and support from the caregivers and a healthy, positive environment (Krebs
et al. 2013). In relation to this the primary schools can give the provisions of nutritive food to the
children that would provoke them to attend school and have good food.
Diseases like cystic fibrosis can lead to cognitive impairment in the child. In such cases
proper treatment regimen and planned care can help to improve the cognitive status of the child
(Liliyard et al. 2013).
It has been reported that every individual posses at least 50 genetic abnormalities that can
incline him to any health problem (Mitchell and Black 2016). According to some researches if a
cognitive disorder runs in the family genetically and a child gets the trait, a chance remains that
early detection and interventions can help to counteract the deficiencies.
Hence it can be said that proper psychological approaches can bring about reduction in
the cognitive and the developmental issues faced by the child.
4.1. Researches
There are several models to determine the cognitive behavioral model of the anxiety
disorder in children. Researchers say that anxiety disorders are the most common mental
disorders found in children (Essau and Ollendick. 2013). According to Shaffer, D.R. and Kipp.
2013, violence exposure and the development of the school related functioning have an effect in
the mental health, learning and neurorecognition in children. According to Barett et al. 1998. If
proper skills for managing the anxiety and disorder are given to the families then the cognitive
impairment can be prevented. According to, Crain, there are different developmental delays that
are found in children and infants or example language or speech, vision, movement or the motor
skills, social and the emotional skills, thinking and the cognitive skills. If a child experiences a

9COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
delay in the cognitive development, it is advisable that early treatment is the best way to help
him to catch up with the other children (Peterson 2013).

10COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
References
Baldwin, A.L., 1967. Theories of child development.
Bjorklund, D.F. ed., 2013. Children's strategies: Contemporary views of cognitive development.
Psychology Press.
Carr, A., 2015. The handbook of child and adolescent clinical psychology: A contextual
approach. Routledge.
Cherry, K., 2012. Erikson's theory of psychosocial development psychosocial development in
infancy and early childhood. The New York Times Company. http://psychology. about.
com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial. htm [26 May 2012].[Links].
Crain, W., 2015. Theories of development: Concepts and applications. Psychology Press.
Krebs, D.L., Vermeulen, S., Carpendale, J. and Denton, K., 2014. Structural and situational
influences on moral judgment: The interaction between stage and dilemma. en: WM Kurtines et
JL Gewirtz (eds.): Handbook of moral behavior and development, 1, pp.139-169.
Lillard, A.S., Lerner, M.D., Hopkins, E.J., Dore, R.A., Smith, E.D. and Palmquist, C.M., 2013.
The impact of pretend play on children's development: A review of the evidence. Psychological
bulletin, 139(1), p.1.
McLeod, S., 2013. Erik Erikson. Retrieved August, 9, p.2013.
Mitchell, S.A. and Black, M., 2016. Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic
thought. Basic Books.

11COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
Mooney, C.G., 2013. Theories of Childhood: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson,
Piaget & Vygotsky. Redleaf Press.
Peterson, C.C., 2013. Looking forward through the lifespan: developmental psychology. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
Powell, K., 2012. Nature vs. Nurture: Are We Really Born That Way.
Rosenthal, T.L. and Zimmerman, B.J., 2014. Social learning and cognition. Academic Press.
Santrock, J., 2012. LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. Psychology.
Shaffer, D.R. and Kipp, K., 2013. Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence.
Cengage Learning.
Spencer, J.P., Austin, A. and Schutte, A.R., 2012. Contributions of dynamic systems theory to
cognitive development. Cognitive Development, 27(4), pp.401-418.
Thompson, R.A., 2012. Whither the preconventional child? Toward a life‐span moral
development theory. Child Development Perspectives, 6(4), pp.423-429.