Nature vs nurture a controversial topic in psychology that debates whether we inherit certain traits of behavior that are a product of either inherited or acquired characteristics. The definition of nature is the biological qualities (genes) that make up the human body, on other hand, nurture is defined as your culture, your relationships, how you were raised, and your morals. It has long been known and proven by science that eye color, black or brown hair, color of the skin and diseases are all a function of the genes we inherit. Other physical traits, appear to be strongly influenced by our parents. Our height, weight, and vulnerability to specific illnesses are all genetically related to individuals. The debate starts with the question that our personality, behavior, feelings and, intelligence, are either genetically attained, or environmentally developed. The purpose of my paper is to prove theoretically that nurture and nature both play a role in shaping who we are. Not only one is responsible for shaping us, but certainly each one plays a certain role in doing it. Our personality, behavior, intelligence, and feelings are NOT only developed through the environment and shaped through experiences and time. But our genetic code also plays a few roles.
First I would like to talk about our personality. Our personality defines who we are as a person and the way we act. We can actually trace traits of our personality earlier than you think. Doctors can predict whether a baby will have higher levels of anxiety and stress By the movement and heart rate of a fetus. Another contributing factor to this is the stress levels of the mother. The amount of stress she experiences will also have an effect on how the child will react in times of stress. “That is, infants born to mothers who have experienced an unusual amount of stress during pregnancy tend to have impaired stress functions; higher baseline levels of stress hormones; and a faster, stronger, and more pronounced psychological response to stress, all of which persist into childhood (Feist & Rosenberg, 2012).” This all means that a child is likely to experience anxiety and high stress levels because that is what they felt in the womb. Your personalities are shaped with the environment around us. Everything around your environment plays a part in shaping who you are. “Personality is the unique and relatively enduring set of behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and motives that characterize an individual (Feist & Rosenberg, 2012).” our personality plays a big part in what we think about the world, and it shapes certain traits about us. Examples of personality traits include: optimistic, intelligent, confident, adventurous etc. The order we are born in according to Alfred Adler, can also play a part in our personality. According to alfred the first born child is more likely to have superiority and power. The second child could be more cooperative and be overly competitive. Adler says that the youngest is, “realistically ambitious but pampered and dependent on others (Feist & Rosenberg, 2012).” and this is because typically parents try to take more care of the second child more. They try to protect and pamper the second child more due to him being the smallest. The way each sibling is nurtured shapes their personalities. If you let a kid wonder around and discover things by himself he will become more adventurous and independent. On the other side if you take care and make a child really dependent of you he will not be as outgoing and dependent. Powledge (2014) stated in her article, “Experience and social environment have a role – probably a key role – in development.” Tabitha Powledge thoroughly studied the effects that nurture has on personality as well as the effects that nurture has on the force of nature.
In addition to our personalities, behavior is something else that is influenced by the environment around us. Tabitha powledge believes that the way peoples behaivior is developeded depends on how well they remember expiriences from the past“The basis of all behavior is learning and memory (Powledge, 2014)” The way a person behaves can be influenced by the ways their parents raised them and through experiences. For example, as kids we are thought through observation and reinforcement to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Another example is a child could learn how to behave aggressively towards other children by simply watching other people engage in violent behavior. Albert Bandura’s social learning theory actually proves that people learn by observing the behavior of others. Albert Bandura conducted a experiment Bobo doll experiment. Where Bandura demonstrates that children could learn aggressive behaviors simply by observing another person acting aggressively. The environment in which we grow up in shapes the way we perceive the world. Being exposed to a certain environment for a long period of time, shapes how we think of the rest of the world in a similar way. Our behavior is all shaped in by the environment due to survival. We can take a look at some of the most extreme places to live in the world. The people exposed to this living environment has to remain emotionally strong, because of the extreme environmental factors. epigenetics in her article. “Epigenetics – how nurture shapes nature (Powledge, 2014).” A person can be born with specific function and tendencies but nurture shapes these tendencies into personality. She specifically described behavioral epigenetics. “Behavioral epigenetics refers to the study of how signals from the environment trigger molecular biological changes that modifies what goes on in the brain cells (Powledge, 2014).” Basically, it is the study of external factors that alter the way that people think and react to different situations. In addition to epigenetics, familial influences also have a great bearing on how a person discovers their unique character.
Intelligence I think there’s two types of intelligence, street knowledge and book knowledge. Both are not something you are necessarily born with, but that you attain through experience. When a kid is born they are not just magically intelligent they are not born knowing how to speak. They learn through observing and hearing. They observe the movements of your mouth and hear the sounds that comes out. You can also have working knowledge you learn through experience and observing how others work. knowledge comes from experience and that any individual can obtain this knowledge if surrounded by the correct environment with the right resources. People gain knowledge and experience through different situations that shape their character.
Feelings, when we cry because we are sad it is for the purpose of nurturing or coping with the sadness. Some people even
Paragraph 2 : Nurturer
Women caring for baby before birth and after = for life
World around you