Nature Vs Nurture In The Outsiders

Nature versus Nurture is a common topic when discussing one’s personal development while growing up. Children are often affected by how their families treat them and teach them their values and judgements. This sometimes changes the children’s personalities and manners. Because of that the way they’re brought up can also often impact the choices they make in their future lives. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how children are influenced by their families using the Finch and the Ewell families. Personally, my family has also greatly impacted my life and personality growing up.

“Trying to separate out nature and nurture as explanations for behavior, as in classic genetic studies of twins and families, is now said to be both impossible and unproductive” (Levitt, 1). Social scientists have declared the nature-nurture debate to be unnecessary. Similarly, scientists feel that such debate is not only unhelpful, but also outdated. From geneticists’ perspective, nurture and nature interact to influence

Nature Vs Nurture is often the huge debate in psychology when it comes to determining and understanding individual’s characteristics traits. Nature is hereditary to our behavior while nurture is based on our environmental influences. Although most argue whether or not nature or nurture defines our characteristics, I believe both have an impact on we are.

The question of whether we are more heavily influenced by our surroundings and/or our upbringing as opposed to what comes naturally to us is a very controversial ongoing debate. This examination can be seen in the 1965 experiment known as “The John/Joan Case”, intended to test the theory of “Nature vs Nurture”. This dispute within psychology is concerned with the extent to which particular aspects of behavior are a product of either inherited or acquired characteristics. “Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence without that affects him after his birth.” (Galton)

I think that that both nature and nurture play an important role and the way a person turns out. It can either have a positive impact on the individual or a negative

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.

Family is like a roller coaster and is always changing and adapting as is needed. One day, a family may be permissive and allow their children to do as they please. However, the next day, the parents may feel it is necessary to use a dictatorial style where everything they say is essentially the law of the house. The last parenting style, authoritative, is when the rules are consistent and the parents are flexible. Depending on which of these styles a parent uses, the child will grow up in a different atmosphere that can influence their personality. This is the idea of nurture, whereas the idea of nature would be that the genetics of the parents, not their parenting style, is what decides the children’s characteristics. Arguably, authoritative parenting is the most effective and reliable, whereas permissive parenting can lead to a lack of stability within a family.

One of the longest running discussions in psychology is the nature vs nurture debate. That is, is human behavior influenced more by environmental factors in one’s life, such as parents, or by genetics and biological factors? In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is described as an outstanding role model for his children, Jem and Scout, teaching them morals, discipline, and important lessons such as the acceptance of those who are different. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne describes Hester Prynne as a strong and independent woman who, despite the circumstances, is a role model for her daughter, Pearl. In spite of having a drunkard for a father, Huck Finn, from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is

The historical debate regarding nature and nurture has been going on for years and is still unresolved. Many theorists believe what we have inherited and our genes, makes us the way we are and how we develop. Other theorists believe it is the way we are brought up and our experiences, that make us the way we are and how we develop.

Theoretical Propositions: The question of why people are who they are and why they behave the in the way that they do was asked. The researchers wanted to understand if people develop into who they are primarily from factors in the environment or because of there genetic makeup. In the second half of the 20th century most psychologists agreed in the theory of behaviorism, human behavior is caused only by factors in the environment. This study would answer the common “nurture vs nature” question that many people still ask today.

While many believe that we are both nature and nurture, some still takes sides and argue whether we are nature or nurture. The topic nature vs. nurture has always been debated. Nature is our inborn abilities and traits, what we are born with. Nurture take the traits we have and mold them as we mature and learn new things. Scientists argue if who we are is shaped by our genes and/or the environment. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding it focuses on a group of boys stranded on an island and their attempt to govern and take care of themselves. Most of the boys become savages. The nurture theory impacts us everyday in our environment. Everyone cares about what others think of them. One follows the current fashion. They try to be like others and start acting like them.

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

Both nature and nurture interplay to determine personality characteristics. Nature is heredity and passed on at conception. Nurture is that which is environmentally developed. It is innate that a baby will crawl, but he needs the support of his environment (diet, etc.) if he is to ultimately survive. Our behaviour is the result of a combination of inborn traits and the situations in which we find ourselves. There are five categorise which help influence personality differences. Genetically, offspring tend to take on some of the characteristics of their parents. However, this could be due to long term exposure to the personalities of their parents rather than their genetic coding. Whether a person is male or female determines what gender role they take on. ‘Women are expected to be nurturing, attractive, emotional, weak, and subordinate to men; whereas, men are the strong, rational, objective, and financial providers’ (Loue and Sajatovic, 2007). Ones family experiences can also influence a person’s behaviour. Family experiences like: ‘family size, birth order, differential parental orientations towards children’ etc. will impact on the emergence of personality as well as a person’s suitability to leadership roles (Morley and Moore et al., 2004, pp. 28-52). Culture plays a very strong role in determining what is believed to be acceptable and unacceptable

Nature combines with nurture to form our personalities. Our genes may predispose us for certain inheritable traits such as diseases like cystic fibrosis or even just irritability, similar to our relatives, but the environment we are raised in has quite a bit to do with how visible certain aspects of our personality become. If a child is always around an environment where there is constant arguing and yelling going on, the child may naturally feel that is the proper thing to do when things do not go as they would like. Likewise, genetics play a role in determining a person's body type, thus you could get your eye color from your mom, and your height from your dad.

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.