M1

The nature vs nurture debate has been massively argued about between many theorists and philosophers in relation to why a person is how they are. Nurture “refers to all environmental influences after conception, i.e. experience” (simplypsychology, 2007 website ) that are responsible to how a person is. Nature on the other hand “refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are – from our physical appearance to our personality characteristics”. (psychology.about website). In Angelina Jolie’s, she has many life events which could be accounted for by either side of the argument. However first I will explain how Nature has effected her development through the stages of her life.
Nature
Infancy
In Jolie’s infancy, she would have many characteristics which would have been their because of nature. Some of these characters include the her physical appearance, such as her eye colour, nose shape, lip shape, skin pigment, whether her hair is straight or curly, body shape and so on. This is due to proteins within her body being influenced by how her genes instruct the structure of her amino acids, therefor shaping the cells in her body. These genes are inherited from her parents, Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. This is clear when looking at Jolie’s mother when she was around the age Jolie is now as they have very similar characteristics, including the same dark straight hair and lip shape.
As nature effecting Jolie’s appearance, it will also effect other developments in Jolie’s physical development in infancy. This is includes the basic instincts which are engrained in her genes when she is born. Some of these instincts include Jolie crying at birth instinctively and having a suckling reflex right after birth. These two instincts are clearly a result of nature as no one had taught Jolie these skills.
Nature would have also largely influenced Jolie’s temperament as a baby, in Jolie’s case it made her very quiet and observant of those around her where as other babies may be more restless. Jolie’s personality traits are due to her DNA as a number of genes have been found to be responsible for the basis of human personality traits, as they are hereditary. However, because these genes are only the basis of personality, they only have the potential to become full emotions. It is also nurture that moulds Jolie's personality, as her experiences may also influence her personality. Jolie's intellectual development is also largely a result of the influence of nature. This is because she be born with the genetic potential to learn skills such as playing with toys or recognizing human voices. Jolie's potential comes from her being able to learn at a very quick rate in her infancy. This is due to a huge number of synapses being created in Jolie's brain. When Jolie is at the age of three she would have over 2 million synapses in her brain that had been created. This would allow jolie to learn various new skills. However, nurture will be just as important as Jolie would need a person to encourage and stimulate her to enable her to learn.

Childhood
In Angelina's childhood, nature again would be a huge influence on the changes which occur in her appearance. This is due to her body going through the maturing process. When this occurs, she will grow taller and gain more adult features. This is a biological process so nature is obviously the main contributor to this happening
As well as this, Jolie's social and emotional development in childhood would be affected by her hereditary personality traits. This is due to her personality being a main tool in which she uses to interact with other children to create new relationships. Her personality traits will also affect her emotional development, as they will determine how well she copes with experiencing new emotions which she is not used too. However, nurture will also play a part in this as they will learn how to react too many things from their parents.
Adolescence
In Jolie's adolescence, nature will have a significant effect on her physical development. This is due to her producing more hormones which will result in her having growth spurts. As well as this, she will go through the natural process of puberty. This will result in Jolie going through bodily changes including her body shape changing, her growing body hair and her breasts growing.
As well as this, her moods will also be impacted by the hormones being released in to her body. These mood changes include her going from one emotional extreme to the other, including being angry or upset one minute then hyper and happy to the next. Both of these physical and emotional changes which are cause by her by her body releasing, may also cause her to have a negative self-esteem and depression. However, nurture would also play a part in this low self esteem as she was bullied.
In Jolie’s adolescence she would also go through the natural process of becoming sexually mature as her sex organs would be able to produce sex hormones. This would have effected her social development as she had sex for the first time, at 14 in this age range.
Nature may also be partly responsible for Jolie’s depression which caused reckless behavior in her adolescence too . This could be due to Jolie having genes which would make her more inclined to develop depression. Due to these genes she developed depression used self harm and drug use to cope with her feelings. However, nurture may also argue that her peers influenced her into taking part in these activities.
As Angelina Jolie began to take an interest in a career in being an actress. Nature may have influenced this choice because she inherited a talent for acting from both of her parent who were also both actors. As a result, she would be guided by these genes, as described in the maturation theory, and inevitably pursue a career in acting.

Adulthood
In adulthood, her physical development will naturally but slowly deteriorate. This is natural process because Jolie would have reached her physical peak so her body can only go downhill. Some ways in which this will happen is her eyesight becoming weak and her coordination deteriorating.
As well as this, Jolie will go through the menopause. This is a biological process when the hormones in her body change which result in Jolie not being able to conceive a child any longer and her menstrual cycle stopping.
Another physical development which occurred because of natural genetic reasons is Jolie having a double mastectomy. This was because she found out that she has a gene called the BRCA1 cancer gene. As a result of her finding this gene, she had the preventative operation. However, nurture may also have had an influence on her choice. This is because she went through seeing her mother have cancer and didn't want the same fait.
Nature would also have effected her social development, in relation to her career. This is due to her gaining her acting talents from her parents through inheriting their genes, which gained her a successful acting career. Nature theorists would argue that this is due to the maturation theory. This is because her interests in acting was guided by this talent gene, which in her case is acting, so it is inevitable that she would become an actress, which she did. However, nurture theorists may just argue because Jolie was around acting her whole life that she gained this interest.
Older Adulthood
In older adulthood, Jolie will experience physical changes due her body going through a natural decline. These changes include wrinkles, her hair thinning and becoming grey, her skin losing elasticity and so on. As well as this her senses may being to not function properly, for example she may lose her smell or touch sense. Both of these things are a natural occurrence when becoming older and is inevitable.
Another physical development she could experience that are a result of the influences of nature as she may get disease like arthritis This is because this disease is caused by a natural wearing down of her joints. However, nurture could also mean that the likelihood of Jolie getting this would be greater if she had a family history of arthritis.
Jolie’s intellectual development is also effected by nurture because her cognitive ability will naturally start to deteriorate. This will result in her not being able to perform everyday tasks like remembering keys as well as her finding it difficult to concentrate. Both the physical and intellectual development will result in Jolie becoming socially isolated as she may be less confident talking to people and could be in pain if she does go out.
The Final Stages of Life
Nature will affect Angelina Jolie’s physical development massively at this stage. This is due to her body naturally shutting down as she prepares for death. When her body is going through this process, she may experience becoming unresponsive, loss of appetite, difficulty breathing and so on.
Her intellectual development will also be effected by nature. This is because her cognitive abilities will be massively deteriorating at this point stage in her life. As a result Jolie will experience confusion which could make her have hallucinations which involve seeing and hearing things which are not there.
As well as this, social development is also going to be effected be natural factors. This is because she will experience a lot of tiredness so will only want to sleep. As a result of this, she will become socially disengaged.
Nurture

Infancy
Nurture would be a major influence at this time due to Jolie being around her family constantly in her infancy. As a result of this she would have copied behavior of her family which would have result in her learning a variety of new skills. Some of these skills would involve her developing in her physical abilities. This includes learning how to support her own head and improving her coordination by being encouraged by her mother and brother to catch and grab toys.

Jolie will also learn language from her family; this is her due to recognizing the voices of her family. As a result, she will start to respond to the voices, these responses will get more advanced the more her family interacts with her. Eventually she will turn random sounds into basic words. All of this is nurture because her mother is spending time with her to ensure that she learns new things.

Nurture is also very influential in her emotional development. This is because her mother is her primary carer Jolie will learn that she can trust and feel secure in her mothers company. This will be Angelina’s first emotional bond, so is very significant.

In infancy, nature will also help develop her socially. This is due to her parent encouraging her to talk and interact with other children as well as her going to a nursery. As a result she will be nurtured so that she achieves basic social skill.

Childhood
At this stage Jolie will be curious, so she will ask about things that she doesn’t understand. As she has her family and teachers around her to help her understand, her intellectual development will improve and will be able to teach her about different things. For example her teachers will be able to teach her academic subjects like math’s as english. Whereas her mother will be able to teach her norms and values of society, including how to behave and not to behave which is also developing her social skills.
Her school environment will also be able to teach her about how diverse people are due to her experiencing to talk to people she has never talked to, including people of different race or religion. She will also develop her social skill at school by spending time with people outside of her family who she has only had experience with. As a result, she would start developing how to form friendships.

Adolescence

At this age, Jolie would start to experiment with her physical appearance which shows physical development. Jolie did this by dying her hair purple and wearing black clothes. This change in her appearance would have been as a result of her being influenced by her peers, specifically her ‘punk rocker’ boyfriend. This shows that she is clearly being influenced by the people around her in her physical development which is a clear result of nurture.
Jolie may also show intellectual development by rebelling against parents as she starts to form her own view on various things. This could be a result of her peers also influencing her behavior.

As well as this, Jolie’s emotional development was negative in her adolescence stage of life. This was due to her experiencing bullying from girl at her school. This has influenced her feelings of depressions , and her actions involving self-harming which she used as a coping mechanism.

Nature also clearly influenced her social development. This is clear as she was very influenced by her boyfriend as she would both do drugs and has sex with him at the age of only 14. These are behaviors which the normal 14 year old wouldn’t take part in. However, having her boyfriend influenced her to do this which would make her social development quicker and more destructive.

Although this is the case, Jolie clearly evolved from these behaviors when she realised that her environment was having a negative effects. This change can be seen as she broke up with her boyfriend and decided to focus on her career as an actress.

It is clear that nurture influenced her acting career due to her being bought up around her actor parents and also them taking her to the movies. As a result, she would be influenced into having an acting career because of her parents nurturing her.

Adulthood

Jolie’s experiences would affect Jolie’s decision to get a double mastectomy. This is because she saw her mum died of cancer when she was an adult. As a result, she would know that she had a chance of getting it decided on a test which determined that she did have a chance of getting cancer. As a result of this, she didn’t want to die and suffer like her mother so made a decision to have the double mastectomy. This shows that Jolie’s experience influenced her in making this decision although nature also occurs because she had the faulty gene.

As well as this, Angelina’s aging process may also be at a slower rate. This is due to her having access to money which will provide her with a healthy lifestyle. As a result she eats healthy and can afford to keep fit at a gym. This will also result in her physical appearance appearing healthy and fit.

Nurture would have helped as well with Jolie’s intellectual and professional development. This is because in her career as an actress, she would interact with a number of people, especially ones that she doesn’t know or like. As a result of this, she will learn how to make professional relationships.

Another thing that Jolie will learn is that she has new responsibilities. These include looking after herself which involves learning new skills like cooking her own food or doing laundry. She will also be responsible for her children, as she has to learn how to meet their physical, social and emotional needs.

Jolie will also have less emotional support as this time from her family. As a result she will have to learn how to cope emotionally on her own and become self-reliant because of her difficult environment. This can be shown when her mother died and she learnt to cope by keeping active and making a new movie, showing an emotional development in her coping techniques.

Nurture will be influential in her social development. This is because her acting and humanitarian career will mean that she would meet a variety of new people. As a result a number of new relationships will be formed. As well as this, in Jolie’ s adulthood she will experience more serious committed relationships which involve her experiencing both marriage and divorce as well as having children.

Older Adulthood

Jolie’s change in appearance may result in her having a bad self-esteem. This is due to her being in a social environment were youthfulness is attractive and having wrinkles is the opposite to this. As well as this, her self-confidence will be affected by how society views old people as useless. This is due to them having a stereotype of old people being unable to do certain things. As a result of both of this, Jolie may become socially disengaged due to nature, as the people around her make her feel bad about herself.

Final stages Nurture may have a massive influence over Jolie. This is because Jolie’s emotional development will deteriorate because people around her having to do everything for her, which could result in her becoming embarrassed because she is so immobile as well as discouragement in herself. Sue to this her social development will be influenced because she will just want to disengage from society so that she doesn’t have to deal with these feelings.
However, she may also get comfort from the comfort of others, especially her family as they know that they are their either which will make the final life stages more bearable.

D1
Infancy
Physical:
In Angelina Jolie's infancy, both nature and nurture influence physical development. One important way in which nature will affect physical development is in Jolie's appearance, as it will give her all her characteristics. However, nurture also plays a part in this because the environment in which Jolie is bought in may also affect her appearance. This is because as Jolie's mother did not smoke, do drugs or have a bad diet it meant that Jolie was born a healthy weight and height. Although this is the case, genes are still the most important factor in determining what Jolie looks like because she is unable to change her genes, so her appearance can't be changed. However, if Jolie is underweight this is not a permanent state and can be changed. Therefor nature is the most important influence when it comes to appearance.
Nurture and nature also mean that infants will have the ability to do physical activities. Nature will provide an infant with basic survival instincts, which include the suckling reflex needed to drink milk and maintain her health. However, nurture means that Jolie's family, mainly her mother who is her prime carer, will have the task of teaching Jolie new skills including catching as grabbing thing for example. These skills are more likely to be useful in the future of development. Due to this, the nurture skills are more important as skills learnt for survival as babies won't be useful in future development.
Intellectual
Nature and nurture are both influences on the intellectual development of Angelina Jolie. Nature influences intellectual development because of the rate in which synapses are created in the her brain. This enables the potential for Jolie to learn at a rapid speed. However nurture influences the intellectual development due to Jolie's family actually teaching her key skills which she will need for the future. In conclusion, genes only provide the potential for Jolie to learn, whether she achieves this potential is dependent on whether her parents are active in teaching her the skills. As a result, nurture is more important in infancy for intellectual development because without it she wouldn't learn even if she had the potential.
Emotional and social
In infancy, nurture is the main influence in the development of Jolie's emotional and social development. This is because nurture provides Jolie with the emotional feeling of love, security and safety. As a result her mother creates an emotional bond with Jolie which also develops her socially because it is the first relationship which Jolie will experience. Nature will also provide Jolie with biological programming that could influence what her emotions and attitudes towards others may be. For example, as Jolie has genes which means that she is quiet and observant of people, this may mean that she will be quiet around people and not try and interact with them, therefor determine her social ability around others. However, nurture will influence Jolie's social development too. This is because family encourages Jolie to interact with other children. As a result Jolie's basic social skills would be developed. In conclusion, again genetics only provide the potential for social and emotional development. Whereas nurture provides actual development in providing social and emotional developing so they learn basic skills. As a result, nurture is more important in the emotional and social development.
Adolescence
Physical
Nature and nurture both have influences in the physical changes which occur in Jolie’s body at this time. In nature, Jolie goes through the biological process of hormones releasing in her body and reaching puberty, this will mean that her body will go through changes as it is developing and having her period. However, nurture may have an effect on when her period start due to her diet and other environmental factors. Nurture also influenced Jolie to experiment with her physical appearance, as she died her hair and changed her clothes. She did this specifically to fit in with her boyfriend. Although these changes occur, nature is the most important factor in her physical development because they will make the more significant changes to Jolie’s body, whereas the changes which are influenced by nurture are only temporary so are not as important, because they are only a phase.
Emotional
Jolie’s emotions will be effected by the influences of both nurture and nature. This is because hormones affect Jolie’s mood, making her having extreme emotions. The changes in Jolie’s body, as a result of nature, will also result in her having bad self-esteem. As well as having mood swings, Jolie may have been more at risk of getting a gene which makes the chances of her getting depression more likely. However, nurture is the catalyst to this occurring. In Jolie’s case the catalyst was her being bullied by her peers. This would have made her moods worse and caused depression. In conclusion, nature is the most important because it makes emotions very heightened and more sensitive to negative comments. However it could also be argued that nurture is the most important in the causes of depression, because nature on provides the genetical potential which nurture fulfils it through her environment.
Intellectual
Intellectual development is mainly influenced by adolescence developing the intellectual skills to form their own opinions which may result in tensions with their parents. However, nurture theorists that tension is only caused by Jolie in her adolescence wanting to rebel to fit in with her peers.
Social
Nurture theorists will argue that Jolie’s destructive behaviour, like having sex and doing drugs at 14, is a result of her peers, mainly her boyfriend, pressuring her and influencing her. This is because she would have spent a lot of time with them so would have done it to fit in. However, nature theorists would argue that Jolie having sex was only a natural process because of her being sexually mature, as her sex organs can produce sex hormones so this was inevitable.