About the lecture

In this lecture, we take a second deep dive, but this time into the opposite end of the debate – nurture, focusing in particular on: (i) some of the ancient philosophical thinkers who originally formulated contrasting ideas about how the environment can influence our development; (ii) the ‘tabula rasa’ idea formulated both by Aristotle and Ibn Sina (or Avicenna), followed by John Locke’s then controversial continuation of the theory; (iii) some more modern viewpoints, starting with John B. Watson’s famous ‘dozen healthy infants’ quote, and its less commonly cited follow-up comment; (iv) experimental evidence for environmental influences on our behaviour, using Watson & Rayner’s ‘Little Albert’ study to evidence acquiring fear, and Bandura’s ‘Bobo Doll’ study to evidence developing aggressive tendencies; (v) some potential impacting factors of our physical environment, including evidence for raised temperatures and overcrowding increasing people’s tendency to aggress; (vi) a study by Happ et al. (2013), which demonstrated prosocial behaviour in videogames increasing prosocial behaviour in real life.

About the lecturer

Dr Lydia Kearney is Deputy School Director of Education in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent. Dr Kearney’s research areas of interest are social anxiety and experiences of mental imagery, particularly how the two interact and impact attention and interpretation biases. Some of Dr Kearney’s recent publications include 'Observer perspective imagery in social anxiety: effects on negative thoughts and discomfort' (2011) and 'The intra and interpersonal effects of observer and field perspective imagery in social anxiety' (2013).