Edexcel Level 3 BTEC Diploma Health and Social Care
Unit 4 Development through the life stages
D1 Evaluate how nature –nurture may affect the physical, intellectual, emotional and social development for two stages of development of the individual.

Nature * Voice * Ability to move * Appearance

Nurture * Characteristics * Shyness * Being abused at a young age * Appearance

In this assignment I will be explaining how nature and nurture are involved in Michael Jackson’s development of his childhood and adulthood. I will start of by explain what is meant by Intellectual, Social, Physical and Emotional development. Then I will carry on explaining the different events that occurred in Michael Jackson’s life and how it was either nature or nurture.

Intellectual development:
“Begins shortly after birth, when babies learn to use their brains to play, respond to caregivers and familiarize themselves with objects and other people in the attempt to learn about the world around them. The process continues through all of children’s lives, as they go to school, form intellectual relationships with others and learn new skills. Intellectual development continues to the end of a person’s life, but it can be largely impaired by illness, emotional insecurity, failing eyesight or hearing or through the lack of communication with other people.” (http://www.ask.com/world-view/intellectual-development-mean-b363c12a7264f641#full-answer)

Emotional development:
“Refers to a child’s growing ability to regulate and control emotions and to form secure relationships. It differs from cognitive development, which readies a child for school, in that it prepares a child to take on a greater degree of responsibility for his or her internal state. Growing scientific evidence shows that a child’s experiences during the early years play a significant role in emotional development.” (http://www.ask.com/world-view/emotional-development-6aeb75f3572915ea#full-answer)

Social development:
“Social development is defined as prioritizing human needs in the growth and progression of society. Social development also governs the norms and conventions that govern human interaction. The focus is on improving the lives of regular citizens, especially the poor, to make society a better place for everyone. (http://www.ask.com/world-view/definition-social-development-25739017229f3632#full-answer)

Physical development:
“Physical development is the physical growth from birth to adulthood and the development of both gross (eg. Walking) and motor (eg. Finger movement) control of the body. Physical development means the progress of a child’s control his body. This includes control over muscles, physical coordination, ability to sit and stand” (http://www.slideshare.net/sreedevimulpuri/physical-development)
Examples of intellectual development:

* Education

Examples of emotional development:

* Motivation * Expression

Examples of social development:

* Chooses his or her own friends * Comforts other if they are upset * Eats correctly * Enjoy caring for animals * Knows his or her full name and address

Examples of physical development:

* Most infants learn to crawl before they walk * Body hair * Voice changes * Menstruation * Birth * Puberty * Death

Intellectual development

In the early stages of Michael Jackson's life it is clear that he was destined for stardom. As said before Michael Jackson was happiest when he was performing and he had a lot of elf-determination to put himself where he was in life and become legend to many people around the world. Some may say that the determination to do well came from his father Joseph and how he pushed him to succeed in life. This type of personal attribute can be seen as genetic as it is father who pushed him to be successful and have this need to do bigger and better things like for instance his performances. Michael Jackson's performance progressed into bigger and better things due to the fact that he was self-confessed workaholics which are possible treats inherited from his father. Both his brothers and his father had also had a music talent.

However, it can also be seen as his environment and experiences of why Michael Jackson was so into becoming a music legend. Michael Jackson used his music as a therapeutic way of transcending his personal struggles. He believed that music is a 'mantra to the soul' which shows that he used his music as a way of moving on from any experiences that he had suffered from. His surroundings in the music industry helped him to do this successfully, his determination to move on from his experiences lead him to one of the most successful music careers in the industry. Being nurtured through his experiences helped him become a music legend.

When Michael Jackson creates his music he feels “like an instrument of nature”, this is a part of what he had said in his speech at the 35th Grammys back in 1993. He has a really good passion for music, which would be nurture because of how he was brought up as a child and the environment that he was brought up in, because his father was a singer as well. (http://www.truemichaeljackson.com/)
Emotional development

Michael Jackson’s self-esteem was beat down by his father Joe Jackson, by telling him that he was stupid, ugly and useless. He was prevented from having any other contact with the children outside of the family and he also did not have any play time as a child. This would have been nurture as it was his father who told him those things and did this to him.

I suppose you could say that Joe Jackson turned Michael Jackson and his brothers into performing machines because he wanted them to be perfect and in order to fulfil this objective he made them rehearse at all hours of the day and night. Nurture would have been here because it was his father to keep him up till the deathly hours of the night performing all the time. However, nature would of come in here as well, as if he did not want to become a singer then he would not of done it in the first place. I suppose that he had fear inside of him due to Joe, his father.

Now we all know that Michael Jackson as a child was adorable and grew up into a handsome teenager and young adult, but he could not see the ‘man in the mirror’ due to the fact that he kept telling himself that he was ugly and disgusting. This is all down to Joe Jackson who told him and his brothers in the first place that they were useless.

In summary of the emotional development that occurred in Michael Jackson life, his upbringing just destroyed him emotionally. This left him unable to have a normal relationship with anyone or a normal marriage.

At an interview he once said that “People think they know me, but they don’t. Not really. Actually, I am one of the loneliest people on this earth. I cry sometimes, because it hurts. It does. To be honest, I guess you could say that it hurts to be me” (http://www.truemichaeljackson.com/) as you can probably see he did not really have much hope in himself, which caused him to be hurt inside as well as on the outside. You may not of noticed but when he is on stage doing what he enjoys the best he hides away the feelings that he had or still has, he may do this because he does not want his fans to see how he actually feels.

When Michael Jackson sees children he gets very emotional, now this could be because of how he was treated by his father when he was a child or the fact that he feels sorry for those children who are in pain. As he said “Being a world traveller, I’m touched and moved by everything that happens, especially to children. It gets me emotionally sick and I go through a lot of pain when I see that type of pain. I can’t pretend as if I don’t see it. It affects me very much.” (http://www.truemichaeljackson.com/).
Physical development

There is a clear debate about the pigmentation of Michael Jackson's skin whether it should be considered as biological or environmental influences. This is because of how it gradually changed throughout his life stages. When Michael Jackson was born he was a black child which was because of his genetics that he received from his parents who were both black as well. As Michael Jackson grew up his skin slowly changed based on his reported disease Vitiligo, which meant that his skin became very pigmented and patchy. Vitiligo is a considered as a natural disease that affects the skin so therefore it would be more genetic than environmental. (http://www.niams.nih.gov/health_info/vitiligo/vitiligo_ff.asp)

One the other side, there are those who say that Michael Jackson's condition was not that severe that he needed to 'bleach' and change his skin colour completely. During Michael Jackson's adult life when he appeared to be paler than most white people there was questions of whether it was really his Vitiligo that was the reason for changing his skin colour or the fact that he may have wanted to be lighter. The media started suggesting that Michael Jackson was ashamed of his skin colour and wanted to change. The environment that Michael Jackson was in enabled him to change himself possibly too much suggesting that if Michael Jackson was not famous then he would have remained his natural colour.

Fame and Money meant that Michael Jackson used plastic surgery to constantly change parts of his body such as his nose which was changed drastically on countless amounts of time. It is understood that fame and money was the best thing that happened to him and also the worst thing to ever happen to Michael Jackson. At the age of 15, it is believed that Michael Jackson stopped growing; this was said by Mr Johnson back in March. Now Michael could have stopped growing at the age of 15 for two different reasons. The first reason is that it could be due to the genes that he had inherited from his mother and father or the second reason is that it could have been the type of environment that he was living in. (http://www.celebheights.com/s/Michael-Jackson-740.html).
Social development

Michael Jackson took drugs and because of this he would off become depressed and therefore would off kept to himself. He would of then started to think how he was going to get his next fix. The amount of friends that he did have would have decreased as time went on due to the fact that he took drugs.

In Michael Jackson taking drugs this would have been more nurture rather than nature because you do not really have a gene inside of you that makes you take drugs. However, depending on the environment that you live in can encourage you to take drugs or influence you to. In Michael Jackson’s case, he lived in a “tough neighbourhood” (http://nypost.com/2014/08/31/joe-jackson-is-cut-out-from-the-rest-of-his-family-insider/) which was in Gary, Indiana, as Joe Jackson said back in 2014 “where other kids were in gangs and getting into drugs. I didn’t want them to be soft”.

At a young age Michael Jackson became a Jehovah’s Witness, which meant that Michael Jackson would of not really had that much time to play or be a normal child. This is what he had said in an article for BeliefNet.com back in 2000 “More than anything I wished to be a normal little boy. I wanted to build tree houses and go to roller-skating parties. But very early on, this became impossible. I had to except that my childhood would be different than most others. But that’s what always made me wonder what an ordinary childhood would be like” (http://justoneopinion.com/michael-jackson-a-conflicted-man-child). In Michael Jackson being a Jehovah’s Witness was nurture as his mother was one herself and brought her kids up to be a Jehovah’s Witness themselves. Later on Michael Jackson decided to keep to being a Jehovah’s Witness.

It is believed that Michael Jackson wanted to still be a child that he never actually wanted to grow up. He built Neverland Park as he was “creating behind the gate” what he “never got to do” when he “was a kid” (http://www.truemichaeljackson.com/neverland/). Michael Jackson said “I created Neverland as a home for myself and my children and it was created simply, it was almost like it was done subconsciously” (http://www.truemichaeljackson.com/neverland/)
Summary

It is clear to see that both nature and nurture played a very vital and important role in Michael Jackson’s life, just like it does with anyone else. Both helped him in the early stages of his life to become the strong and determined singer, songwriter and a great dancer. In contrast, nurture seemed to be more significant in his adult life.

Bibliography

* http://issuu.com/rafaholic/docs/michael_jackson_tribute_to_a_legend_special * https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LuEPnk7irOMC&pg=PA251&lpg=PA251&dq=michael+jackson+-+%27mantra+to+the+soul%27&source=bl&ots=V96IleDeTV&sig=MYzXw-wt-pigxepAe8Y_EnoklDA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tDn8VKmCD6u5ygPAiIGoCg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=michael%20jackson%20-%20'mantra%20to%20the%20soul'&f=false * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulQTZ7C4Tgw