Essay on Nature Versus Nurture Debate

How did your temperament flourish? The phrase nature and nurture relates to the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities as compared to an individual's personal experiences in causing individual differences, especially in behavioral traits. This debate is basically deciding if your genetics have more effect on you or society. Hereditary and environmental elements both frame identity. Identical twins are different in many ways. Personality changes over time. Studies have also shown that nurture is more dominant than nature in shaping personality. Nurture is definitely extra dominant in molding your identity.

One of the most enduring debates in the field of psychology is the controversial idea of nature vs. nurture. Throughout the endless history of the debate, no clear conclusion has been met, only hypotheses have been formed. At the center of the debate, human behaviors, ideas, and feelings are being determined, whether they are learned or inherited. Determining physical traits, such as eye color or hair color, are simple because they are hereditary traits. The idea of having a certain personality, intelligence, or ability is under discussion because scientists cannot determine if these traits are learned, or predetermined by genes.

For years upon years, people have argued the nature vs. nurture debate. The term “nature vs nurture” has been dated to be used all the way back to the Elizabethan period. To break down exactly what nature vs nurture is, it’s a debate whether prenatal care and home environment determines human behavior, or if that simply relies on a person’s genetics. Personally, I believe both nature and nurture play an important role in a human’s development and behavior. To fully understand my reasoning, I’ll break down exactly what nature and nurture are in this long-standing debate.

Nature versus Nurture is the issue of the degree to which environment and heredity influence behavior and development. In this issue nature can be defined as, behaviors due to heredity. Which means behaviors are based on the genetic makeup of an individual and is an influence of the individuals' growth and development throughout life. On the other hand nurture are causes of behaviors that are environmental. Which means the influence is from, parents, siblings, family, friends and all other experiences to which the individual is exposed to.

Q) What was the basis of doctors reasoning to raise David (named Bruce at birth) as a girl? Explain the doctors reasoning in relation to nature versus nurture theories.

In today's society, one will find that there are many different factors that go into the development of a criminal mind, and it is impossible to single out one particular cause of criminal behavior. Criminal behavior often stems from both biological and environmental factors. In many cases criminals share similar physical traits which the general population do not usually have. For example criminals have smaller brains than properly adjusted individuals. However biological reasons cannot solely be the cause of criminal behavior. Therefore, one must look to other sources as to how a criminal mind is developed. Social and environmental factors also are at fault for developing

One of the huge problems with the nature vs. nurture debate is that people often forget to include religion, beliefs, and God into the discussion. Religion, especially Christianity, plays a large role in the development of a person, being in part nature and nurture. Several people grow up believing God is real and He loves and nurtures everyone, and this can in turn give them an instinct to care and nurture others. But God also gives each person a natural instinct to love and protect others because He created mankind in His likeness, and His love is endless. The article Nature vs Nurture – Which Side is God On? makes the point that “God did not create us to be bad (it’s our nature). Nor does God provide an environment for us where we have to

1) Use the example of feral children to construct an argument in the nature versus nurture debate.

The nature versus nurture debate is the scientific, cultural, and philosophical debate about whether human culture, behavior, and personality are caused primarily by nature or nurture. Within the field of psychology, this so-called nature-nurture debate, is very often associated with the issue of intellectual quotient, better known as IQ. In the past psychologists have argued that the way in which a child developed was based solely on nature, genetic or hormone-based behaviors, or nurture, environment and experience. Nevertheless, this extreme way of thinking is now long outdated, and it is clear that both nature and nurture have great effect on our intellectual development. The question now lies in just how much impact each has on an

The issues pitting nature against nurture are exceptionally significant for the gamut of discoveries that attribute an increasing proportion of traits and behaviours to one's genetic makeup. The resulting variety of physical shortcomings and limitations in each person has, for centuries, been countered by endeavours to improve or interfere where necessary, and every individual is consequently the product of a delicate middle path of balance between the two.

From Dr. Money’s perspective, raising Bruce as a girl would allow him to live a “normal” life, if he were to live his life without a penis, he would be seen as an outsider and rejected from society. He also suggested to put Bruce on estrogen, but also surgically give him a cosmetic vagina. Dr. Money explained to Ron and Janet that Bruce/Brenda, would psychologically mature as a woman, and be attracted to men, as well as be able to have sexual intecourse, without a problem. According to Bruce’s parents, there was no reason “that it shouldn’t work” (50). However, they could have thought it out thoroughly, what if Brenda didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin? Would she feel as though something is wrong with her? This is where the topic of

As the dubious history of the debate on nature vs nurture continues to be a controversy, more and more psychologists start to rise from both sides of the argument. The earliest evidence can be traced back to the time of John Locke, who believes that our minds are blank slates and only experience can write override it. Despite the main focus of the issue being how environment transact to influence development, psychologists today continue to argue on the issue of nature vs nurture. Intelligence is more of a concept rather than a specific measure of something. To be able to argue for nature or nurture, one needs to understand what intelligence really means. By definition, it refers to our "mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. This concept covers the fields of many different aspects of the obstacles we meet in life, and what we are trying to figure out is which side of the argument can support and explain how the idea of intelligence is actually produced. Although some correlational studies show that nature corresponds greatly with peoples ' intelligence levels, it does not prove causation unless the correlation level is extremely high (somewhere around +0.8-+1.0). However, many factors and ideas can be used to prove that nurture has a bigger impact on peoples intelligence levels. Through the parenting, education, and social economic and cultural background, it is evident that nurture is

with the same genetic make-up. The results are not conclusive, although it is found that the

On November 15, 1959, four members of the prosperous Clutter family were murdered for seemingly no reason. This led many people to come up with their own ideas of what happened that night. This debate may be answered by psychology. One question that psychologists have is whether people are controlled more by their nature-genetics-or nurture-how they were raised (Mcleod 1). This debate can be used to discuss the motive of murderers, and argue for or against the death penalty in their case. Richard ¨Dick¨ Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, the ¨Clutter Killers,¨ are a perfect example of the nature vs. nurture debate. Perry was more influenced by nurture, while Dick was more influenced by nature.

“[The] capacity for disgust, like all natural capacities, can be built on culture.” (Appiah 54) Are identities constructed because of surroundings, or are they molded based on one’s own individual thoughts and actions? This is the ultimate question; a variation of the nature vs. nurture debate. One can make the assumption that a person is molded by what he or she sees around him happening in the world, or by reading and learning from past events. In CORE this semester, we read plenty of books, all with the common theme of identity. Throughout all three units there were better examples of identity, and there were not so good examples of identity. However, another common theme is an individual’s identity getting compromised by what he or she is exposed to on a daily basis. A person builds his idea of himself based off of what he sees around him. As sad as this fact is, very few people are not influenced by outside sources.