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What Is Nature Or Nurture Essay

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“It’s Nurture, Not Nature” A question that many psychologists ponder is “What determines your personality and behavior: nature or nurture?” There have been countless studies and experiments that attempt to prove one side or the other. From twin studies to evidence of breaking the cycle of abuse, it can be seen that personality and behavior are due to nurture, not nature. A prime example that personality and behavioral patterns are based on nature is alcoholism and drug abuse. Popular belief is that if your parent is an alcoholic or drug addict, you will become an addict too. Yes, people who are the children of alcoholics “are at [an] increased risk” of using drugs or abusing alcohol along with “behavioral and emotional …show more content…

The study showed that “a personal abuse history was not significantly associated with either child abuse potential or dysfunctional disciplinary style” (Rodriguez and Tucker 252). If dysfunctional parenting styles and abuse were genetic; the cycle of abuse would never end. This study proves the cycle of abuse can be broken and you have the power to control your behavior. It is also evident through tin studies that nurture determines personality and behavioral patterns. In most twin studies testing personality and behavioral differences, the twins are not raised in the same environment. In this study, monozygotic twins who are “identical in gender, age, and genetic makeup” who also live in the same home are used (Guo, Chen, Li, Yang, and Zhang 300). They will be testing the effortful control of each twin. This means they will be testing a “regulative dimension of temperament, which is associated with later internalizing and externalizing problems” (Guo, Chen, Li, Yang, and Zhang 300). 585 pairs of monozygotic twins, “from 11 to 18 years [old]” were used in this study (Guo, Chen, Li, Yang and Zhang 301). The parents involved in the study were asked to assess their children’s “capacity to voluntarily regulate behavior and attention” using “a scale ranging from 1 (almost always untrue) through 5 (almost always true)” (Guo, Chen, Li, Yang, and Zhang 302). The children would then rate their mothers as “nurturance-involved parenting, harsh-inconsistent parenting, maternal warmth, and hostility” (Guo, Chen, Li, Yang, and Zhang 302). The study revealed that nurture “was associated with adolescents’ effortful control” (Guo, Chen, Li, Yang, and Zhang 305). Researchers determined “that negative maternal parenting (harsh-inconsistent) and maternal negative expressivity (hostility) were linked to lower levels of effortful control, whereas positive maternal parenting (nurturance-involvement) and maternal expression of positive emotion (warmth) were

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