Correct Answer - Option 2 : Environment
Interactive Role of Heredity (Nature) and Environment (Nurture) on Growth and Development
Each individual is a product of the interaction between heredity and environment. A child born with a rich intellectual background cannot become a full-fledged personality if he/she does not get suitable environmental conditions. Similarly, there is the least chance of development, if you provide better environmental conditions in the form of schooling to a child who does not inherit a good intellectual ability.
Environmental Factors: Many environmental factors influence the rate of growth but most of them hinge upon the level of nutrition besides infections from disease, socio-economic level, and family size, urbanization, climate, and seasonal effects, and psychosocial stress. When environmental conditions improve the size of the child also improves.
- Other psychologists emphasize the importance of nurture, or environmental experience, to development. Experiences run the gamut from the individual's biological environment (nutrition, medical care, drugs, and physical accidents) to the social environment (family, peers, schools, community, media, and accidents), For example, A child's diet affects how tall the child grows and even how effectively the child can think and solve problems.
- However, if a particular body form has favored survival, there will also be selective pressure increasing the frequency of any related gene combinations within the population. Further, in an isolated population, the apparent advantages of a particular body form might be exaggerated by the emergence of an unusual pattern of diet and lifestyle within the community.
- A child may receive numerous insults (a diet low in calories or proteins) during growth and yet survive, but bodily adaptations for survival are made which may result in smaller body size.
- We may change our children’s diets according to the requirements for specific ages, which may lead to their improved growth status.
Thus from the above-mentioned points, it is clear that the above example is reflecting the development is primarily influenced by the environment.