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Childhood Nature Vs Nurture

Decent Essays

There has been an ongoing debate about whether childhood development is mainly influenced by nature, or by nurture. People have been pondering the role of nature and the environment since the time of hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.). Nature suggests our traits are inherited biologically from our parents, while nurture suggests our traits develop depending on the environmental stimuli we are exposed to and how we are raised. Nativists, or those who assume our characteristics are solely influenced by nature, assume the characteristics of the human species as a whole to be a product of evolution, and that our differences and uniquenesses are attributed to our own specific genetic code. They believe that our personality traits simply develop later as a result of maturation. Nativists believe that “maturation governs the emergence of attachment in infancy, language acquisition, and even cognitive development as a whole” (McLeod 2007). They believe that we have an internal “biological clock” that controls development any traits not present at birth. They further propose that humans do as their genes dictate, and that behaviours such as political stance and religion are a result of natural selection and evolution. (Essays U.K., November 2013) Certain physical characteristics are obviously biological, such as skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, which are decided by the genes we inherit. Additional characteristics such as height, weight, and even some illnesses are shown to be

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