Deidre Holder

The article that is reviewed is titled Nature Nurture in Psychology written by Saul McLeod and published in 2007. The objective of this article is to educate people who are unfamiliar with the popular ongoing psychology debate between nature and nurture. Within this article there are numerous comparisons made between nature vs. nurture and the real world making it easier to understand to those who know nothing or very little about the topic. The article is trying to prove the difference between Nature and Nurture. McLeod distinguishes the difference between both nature and nurture by explaining experiments that prove nurture is the reason people act the way they do such as the well-known bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961) and Bowlbys (1969) theory, a popular theory believing nature is the reason why people act the way they do. There are many key points in this article that are crucial to know in order to grasp the fundamentals of nature vs. nurture. The terms nativists: people who make the assumption that the characteristics of the human species as a whole are a product of evolution and that individual differences are due to each persons unique genetic code (McLeod, 2007) and environmentalists: also known as empiricists. Their basic assumption is that at birth the human mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) and that this is gradually filled as a result of experience (McLeod, 2007) were mentioned in the article. Both are very important key terms to know because they define the difference between those who believe that we are the way we are because of nurture and those who believe we are the way we are based on nature. Another significant point McLeod stated In practice hardly anyone today accepts either of the extreme positions. There are simply too many facts on both sides of the argument which are inconsistent with an all or nothing view. Previously in psychology it was either you believed in nature or you believed in nurture now psychologists are accepting that both nature and nurture could be contributing factors in the way children are raised. I didnt have any major issues with this article. I thought that they used numerous examples and majority of terms were defined making it easy for those who dont kn ow about nature vs. nurture theories to understand them and fully grasp the concepts, I did think that when they mentioned any popular experiments done by famous psychologists they could have gave a brief summary about it in case it was unfamiliar to the reader. This information could be very helpful to a lot of people and to society. Many people wonder why their kids act the way they do and what makes them do and same goes with adults. This could be helpful with criminals too we could be able to look at incidents from their pasts such as a bad memory or an inherited trait that contributed to their devious behavior.

Deidre Holder

The second article I reviewed is called Stages of Sleep written by Diana L. Walcutt and was published September 2013.The objective of this article is to enlighten people about the different stages of sleep. They do this by stating all the different stages of sleep in order from when you first start to doze off and daydream unknowingly which are called Alpha and Theta to when you are knocked out cold which are called REM. Each stage is defined intensely and written in softer words making it easier for those who know nothing or very little about the stages of sleep to understand and grasp all the stages. There are 5 major key findings in this article and they are the 5 stages of sleep. Stage 1 (Alpha and Theta) when you first start to doze off and have periods of dreaminess almost like daydreaming , except you are beginning to fall asleep (Walcutt, 2013). Stage 2 (Sleep Spindles) the second stage of sleep lasts about 20 minutes our brain begins to produce very short periods of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity (Walcutt, 2013). Stage 3 (Delta Waves) consists of deep sleeping, slow brain waves begin to emerge during this stage. It is a transitional period between light sleep and a very deep sleep (Walcutt, 2013). Stage 4 (Delta Sleep) deep sleep that lasts for about 30 minutes. Sleepwalking and bed-wetting typically happen at the end of stage four sleep (Walcutt, 2013) and finally Stage 5 (REM) most dreaming occurs during stage 5, eye movement, increased respiration rate and increased brain activity all happen during REM. There were no issues or limitations with this article I thought that it was written and worded perfectly it allows those who know little about sleep and the stages of it to understand the article. The author also sub headed the stages making it easy to find them if a reader was only looking for a specific stage. This article could be connected to the real world because sleep is the one thing every single person in the world has in common. We all have to sleep in order to survive so sleep is something the majority of people have some sort of interest in. Another thing this article can be used for is bed-wetting and sleep walking, both arent uncommon problems for little kids and even adults from this article you can sort of understand and pin point where and when in your sleep you may be wetting your bed or walking around aimlessly around your house.