Psychology Essay questions

1 It seems that Tom 's belief that children are born with neither good nor bad thoughts , desires , or character traits , is not a unique thought or belief . John Locke believed the same thing . He postulated that the mind was a blank slate ' or tabula rasa ' He said that persons are born with no pre-existing ideas and thus , knowledge is determined by the person 's experiences in life (Baird , 2008 . Charles Darwin , on the other hand , studied man as being one who was not a finished product that could not progress . Man always

has the possibility of change with progression towards the better . This kind of thinking then is an argument against Tom 's belief concerning children since man , through the process of evolution and natural selection , already has something inherently good about him (Huxley , 1992 . Plato would also argue with Tom . According to Plato , the human being bears the ideal world within himself , independent of any external experience . In one of his dialogues (Meno , he showed how mathematical truth is not acquired already existent (Dilthey Betanzos , 1998 . In my opinion , children are both inheriting certain character traits from both their mother and father making them already present even before birth . Studies have shown that traits are shared by siblings , especially twins , even when they are raised apart . On the other hand , not all character traits are inherited since studies have also shown that some character traits are learned . For example , kindness that is shown by all siblings in a...