Nature Versus Nurture: Infancy Through Adolescents
Background
Nature versus nurture has been a major controversy with influencing child development. Some people believe that a child’s behavior is caused by a combination of both nature and nurture, but others take the side of nature or nurture. People that take the side of nature more believe that their personality traits come from their DNA and genes which they get from their parents. Others that believe nurture has more to do with their personalities believe that it’s the way they were raised, and life experiences influence the way they act. Even though people are divided by the ongoing debate of nature versus nurture, there is a distinction between the two, this paper will provide evidence that there can be a combination of both.
Analysis
Nature is the biological approach to the explanation of a child’s behavior. The nature of a child has basically already been written before they are even born. A few examples of biologically determined characteristics of a human are genetic diseases, eye, hair and skin color. If a child’s parent or grandparent has an addictive genotype, then it is very likely that the child will receive that genotype. Not everybody that has alcoholism in the family will necessarily become an alcoholic but if exposed to drinking people may be more likely to develop an addiction towards alcohol. The environmental concerns lead to people believing nurture has more to do with the development of a child. A child is born with a natural mental capacity that allows them to learn and the ability to speak a language. This determines the child’s intelligence. If children are born with a large mental capacity, then they can learn a lot more information than children that have a smaller mental capacity. Science provides evidence that a child with a larger mental capacity. Throughout the history of psychology and the discovery of modern science, the views of nature versus nurture have changed a lot. A long time ago, philosophers believed that in the belief of nature married couples who were intelligent should reproduce a lot more kids than married couples who were less intelligent.
People that strongly believe in nurture say that children are born with no personality and later receive their personality traits by the influence of the environment the child grows up in. Today, the modern world has a major effect on a child’s life experiences. Learned behaviors is what nurture is based off of. A child learns how to behave by the way their parent teaches them how to behave. A child’s intelligence can be affected by the way they learn study and learning habits from their parents. If a parent sits down everyday after school to study with their kid, then the kid will eventually learn that in order to learn the material they need to study every day. Another example of nurture is if a child is born to naturally write left-handed but the parents were both right-handed so they influenced the child to write right-handed then they will learn to be right hand dominant.
People also believe that both nature and nurture combined create a child’s personality. For example, if a mother and a father have a set of twins and they put them up for adoption. Those twins are genetically prone to depression and are both adopted by two different families. One child grew up to develop depression because they grew up in a verbally abusive household while the other was raised in a happy and loving household and ended up not developing depression. Another example is obesity. If the parents have a genetic trait of obesity and passes it on to their child but the parents changed their lifestyle so they can overcome the obesity gene. The child will observe and learn how the parent is eating and exercising and do the same. Sometimes this isn’t the case but a lot of the times the children copy their parents’ behaviors and actions. If a child grows up in a household with a healthy lifestyle then they can beat the odds of their obesity trait developing. Yes, genetic traits affect a lot about a child’s development and personality but so do learned behaviors.
Future Directions
In considering both sides of nature versus nurture and also the combining of the two, evidence is provided discovering which method is more sensible relating to child development. Nature is the genetic background a human and nurture is their environmental background. They both have evidence that can prove that they connect back to a child’s personality and development. This paper has proven that both nature and nurture have affected the way a child builds their personality.
References
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- Cherry, K. (2019, July 1). The Age Old Debate of Nature vs. Nurture. Retrieved from https://www. verywellmind. com/what-is-nature-versus-nurture-2795392.
- Mcleod, S. (n. d. ). Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology. Retrieved from https://www. simplypsychology. org/naturevsnurture. html.
- Miller, W. , G. , Jones, & P. , D. (2013, November 9). Nature of Nurture: Refining the Definition of the Exposome. Retrieved from https://academic. oup. com/toxsci/article/137/1/1/1647257.
