1. Which is more powerful--genes or environment?

Psychologists really struggle with this question. Although the answer has changed over the years, the truth is both genes and environment contribute to behavior. During the 60s and 70s psychologists tended to place greater value on the role of environment. However, with the rise in genetic science and greater ability to understand genetic influences in general, scientists give much more credence to the influence of genetics. But both forces are inextricably intertwined to produce human behavior.

Maybe. Reaching milestones early can often be found in the life histories of individuals who accomplish a great deal. However, amazing ability development does not guarantee that this exceptionality will be continued throughout life. By the same token, children who are substantially delayed in reaching their milestones can also turn out to be exceptional human beings.

This is an exciting area of research today. Psychologists are beginning to speculate that early attachment patterns may predict what kinds of adult relationships people pursue. For example, children who are somewhat anxious about their place in the world and who form anxious attachments to their caretakers show some signs of growing up to have fretful, tentative relationships with other adults. Children who form stable attachments early in life may have a better shot at fulfilling adult relationships.

It helps to think about children as little scientists in discovering the principles of how the world operates. Piaget looked at the various aspects of the physical world (e.g., number, volume, length) and carefully observed how his own children acquired their understanding of these skills. When a child learns how a particular dimension works, then that child has demonstrated conservation. If you know a preoperational child, try experimenting with conservation. Find two different shaped containers and pour water from one to the other. The preoperational child will be unduly influenced by the shape of the container. The larger appearing chamber will be seen as having more water. Piaget found that these skills tended to develop in children in predictable ways and described these processes in his stage theories of cognitive development.

They really haven’t become unpopular but they have been challenged. Kohlberg originally collected information about what college males would do in various morally compromising situations. From those answers, he extracted the notion that responses to authority varied in systematic ways. Less well developed individuals tended to weight most heavily the consequences of their moral judgments. Many students invoked social conventions to help them decide what to do in a moral compromise. Very few called upon a self-defined sense of right and wrong. Although Kohlberg’s ideas were initially well-received, his critics pointed out that findings from college males may not generalize to other people in the culture or especially to people in other cultures. Kohlberg’s ideas have been challenged from sociocultural critics, but they still have value in understanding how moral judgments come about.

Kubler-Ross never intended for her stage theory of death and dying to be taken as a lockstep prediction about how people behave when awaiting their death. It is clear that many terminally ill individuals do experience the stages as she described, but the how those reactions (e.g., bargaining, denial, acceptance) are experienced differ across individuals and across cultures.