Nature Vs. Nurture: A Genetic Analysis

One of the oldest debates in the history of Psychology is about Nature versus Nurture. Today, we know that both play a significant role in human’s life. Some people believe that it is genes which affects our way of life and some people believes that it is none other but our environment that greatly influences our lifestyle and some believe that both has tremendous impact on one’s way of life. Indeed in certain cases both our nature (our genes) and our environment roughly play an equal role in human life.

Nature vs Nurture is something that has been researched for many years especially when it comes to finding the reason for someone committing a crime. When talking about nature, I am talking about how you are born. The genes that you are born with that make you who you are. When referring to nurture I am talking about how someone is raised. Such as the environment you live in and what is taught to you. As humans we cannot control our nature it is simply what you are born with. When you are born you have all your genes that will decide what you look like, how tall or short you will be, so why do we not believe that our behavioral tendencies, and personality attributes come from our genes too. Psychological theories such as the biological approach, and psychoanalysis have helped to show us how are genetics predetermine our behavior. Researchers have found multiple facts that support each side and for years no one has been able to decide which one influences us over the other one. I believe that our nature has a greater impact on us then our nurture especially when it comes to criminal actions.

Nature or Nurture. Nature may be all of the genes and hereditary factors with which influence them to become who they are such as physical appearances and personality characteristics. Nurturing impacts people’s lives as well as how they are raised and all the environmental factors. In combination, these qualities can be the true identity of oneself. Many people may argue that nurture appears to a play huge factor in the two, but others may think otherwise. Not having both as a characteristic can have a negative effect on a person physically and mentally. The debate of nature versus nurture appears to be the oldest argument known to man, and it still remains to be unanswered. In the old-age argument nature versus nurture, nature may play a huge role in determining a person’s true identity.

Genes influence every aspect of our physiology, development, and adaptation. Obesity seems to be no exception. Yet, even after reading this article and researching this topic, I still know relatively little regarding the complex interplay between our genetic makeup and our life experiences. The author of this article and the research contained within does little to clarify the role of nurture in the nature vs. nurture argument. Environmental causation is discussed only in terms of how environmental stress has the potential of becoming a part of one’s genetic makeup and therefore transferrable to future generations. It’s clear that genetic factors make a contribution to obesity risk, but not everyone who may be predisposed to obesity because

In my opinion I happen to think nature relies mostly on inherited traits, while nurture relies mostly on time spent improving

Advances in science today suggest neither nature nor nurture is exclusively responsible, but instead an interactive relationship between our genes and environmental influences. The influence that nurture has upon nature is a new and blooming field called behavioral epigenetics.

Nature versus nurture is a complicated subject to speak about. If one’s abilities or lack of are due to their environment or their genes. For example, a child is behaving negatively in class. Many individuals are quick to jump to the conclusion that “Oh, that kid’s parents don’t care, or just don’t know how to raise their child.” That could very well be a possibility, but most people never think that maybe they have a hereditary problem, such as ADHD, that was passed on to the child. This cannot be helped by the child, it is out of their control, but can be just as easily overcame than to just using their disorder or disability as a crutch. It is a very controversial topic in terms of which one is more important. Does the disorder or disability completely ruin the person’s life or can they overcome it? Which has the most effect on one’s life? The answer is, yes.

There is no doubt that nature decides what our natural physical characteristics like eye color, hair color, height, and weight are. But when it comes to how we interact with one another and who we become, the nurture side comes into play and leads us. Human nature or our humanity means our behavioral traits. We develop these traits through the culture, social norms and social ethics in which we were born into. Through our interactions with others we learn how to behave, we learn what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in our society (What are the factors that affect human behavior, n.d.).

In society, not one person is alike. By saying this, many people believe that they strongly take after their parents. Meaning they think Nature is a big part in their life and why they are who they are. The genes in each cell in us humans determine the different traits that we have, more dominantly on the physical connections like eye color, hair color, ear size, height, and other traits. However, it is still not known whether the more abstract attributes like personality, intelligence, sexual orientation, likes and dislikes are gene-coded in our DNA. The nurture theory has experiments showing a child’s behavior with the environment as to adult behavior. In the Nature Vs Nurture debate, everyone has their own thoughts and ideas on each

A rose starts from being a seed planted in dirt. When the seed was planted, who knew if the outcome will survive long enough to achieve ‘the-most-beautiful-thing-ever’ award from someone, a damsel perhaps. Biologically, a human evolves from a sperm inside an ovum. What wondrous things happen after that? Fertilization is the fusion of two such distinctive cells that produces a unique new combination of genes, thus increasing variation on which natural selection can operate. A child is just given DNA to begin with. So commences this evolution of a human mind, behaviour, character traits, personality, physique, urges, and diseases and so forth. Fewer genes imply more environmental influence. 30, 000 genes are simply ‘too few’ to explain human nature, whereas 100,000 would have been enough (100,000 were estimated before 30,000 were calculated in 2001). Nature needs to be nurtured. After there is a nature existing, it can be nurtured. This means there has to be nature for nurture to exist. There is no nurture without nature and nature needs to be nurtured. In his book Nature via Nurture, Matt Ridley states “a child who comes into the world today inherits a set of genes and learns many lessons from experience. But she acquires something else, too: the words, the thoughts, and the tools that were invented by other people far away

The debate has been going on for years. Do we behave the way we behave because of our genes? Are our actions predetermined by our DNA? Or is our environment responsible for shaping us as human beings and is the perception of our surroundings the reason for the way we act? How much does nature influence us, and how much is nurture the primary reason for our development?

There has been an ongoing debate on nature versus nurture that has been around for years. What determines our identity? Our biological nature or the things we grew up around? The answers to these questions still remain uncertain, but are still widely discussed. Deborah Blum shares her opinions on these issues in “Gender Blur”. In her writing, she challenges where we separate biology from society. While our biological nature determines our gender, our surroundings and the things we are exposed to make up our true identity.

Aim: To calculate meta-analytic estimates of heritability in liability and shared an individual – specific environmental effects from the pooled twin data.

The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development.

For more than a century, researchers and psychologists, such as Sir Francis Galton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and many others, have been trying to understand how people are transformed by their environment. Researchers have mainly argued whether it is in fact our environment or rather genetics, our biological pre-wiring, which has influenced human behavior. This concept ultimately facilitated what is now known as the Nature versus Nurture debate. The Nature aspect states that human behavior is predetermined by our inherited genes or is the product of our innate behavior. The Nurture side of the disagreement postulates that human behavior stems from acquired attributes through individual learning and experiences. Correspondingly, the Object Relations Theory in psychoanalytic psychology supports the position that a person’s natural environment (i.e. family, peers, acquaintances, society) forms human development. The Object Relations theory stresses that it is the relationships between people, more specially family, often between mother and child, that crafts the human psyche.