The Impact of Nature/Nurture on Human Intelligence

Abstract

The prime goal of this article is to analyze ways cultural variability or differences can militate in favor of or against objective results in intelligence quotient tests. In assessing human behavior, cross-cultural psychology has opened new dimensions which include cognitive awareness, responses to external and internal stimuli, and environmental, geographical, and ecological constitutions. This new methodology of viewing human behavior has radicalized the notion held by genetic psychologists that human intelligence and aptitude are chiefly the product of nature and therefore immutable, rather than the product of nurture (cultural environment) and therefore changeable. Developments in cross-cultural psychology have led to the discovery that when exposed to other cultures,
human beings have the innate potentiality to change aspects of their customs and traditions, which then lead to changes in culture and environment. The notion of immutability of human intelligence, which involves thinking, reasoning, and construction and execution of concepts assumes too narrow a range of human mental ability.