nativism

n. The point of view that the capacity to perceive time and space, intellectual abilities, character, and thought patterns are born in the individual and minimally influenced by experience. Few persons now take an extreme position in the discussion over what and to what extent is the mind innately structured versus constructed in interaction with experience. Chomsky's ideas of a language acquisition device (LAD), cross-cultural studies of universal human expressions, and Jung's ideas of a collective unconscious are examples of partial nativism.