The Nature Versus Nurture Debate Regarding Human Development
“Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them. ”A quote from wicked, one of the greatest musicals of all time. This really got me thinking. Are people born bad? Are people actually born with evilness within their nature? Is it through genetics? Or is it purely down to the environment they are brought up in? The relationships they encounter whilst growing up? And the way their parents may have raised them? This brings me on to the very well known debate known as the nature versus nurture debate. This is the debate between whether our genes and inheritance determine our behaviour or whether it is our experiences throughout our childhood, the society we live in and the relationships we build.
It has been known for many years that peoples physical characteristics such as hair and eyes and height are inherited through genes but when behaviour comes to discussion nothing has to be said about genes and inheritance. In psychology today the nature versus nurture argument is probably the most controversial debates regarding human development. Do the traits we inherit or our experiences whilst growing up play a stronger part in forming the person who we become? Famous philosopher John Locke believed in ‘Tabula Rasa’ which is the idea that suggests all individuals are born with a blank slate without any content in their brains and therefore everything we know and the type of people we are comes from our own personal experiences and knowledge proving that nurture is a stronger reason for people’s development and behaviour.
In Albert Bandura’s famous social learning experiment, it was demonstrated how children could pick up aggressive behaviour by observing someone else while acting aggressively, this, therefore, illustrates how it's experiencing stuff for ourselves that define our characteristics and not inherited traits. There are also ways on how nurture and nature interact with each other, for example, research has been found that to be pitch perfect is the ability to identify a musical note without any help, this is an inherited gene but is useless without the necessary training to allow the ability to manifest itself, which is through experience of this in early childhood years.
The environment we are brought up in has a lot to say about the way we may respond to things around us, for example, if someone is raised in a more deprived area it is statistically proven that people living in a poorer environment are most likely to commit crimes such as theft and robbery to provide resources and essentials. When looking at environmental reasons for people’s characteristics social media has a big part to play on this side of the argument. Social media today is constantly evolving and younger generations are being introduced to society through social media and for some of the time objected to frightful things. The things that are accessible today on social media have no boundaries, this can be to blame for many teenage suicides and peer pressure into committing a crime, as studies look at social media and peer pressure influenced behaviour, this reinforces the importance of nurture. This brings us back to the idea of a blank slate when we are learning things from our society and through social media, this is what starts to fill the slate and form new characteristics within someone’s personality no matter what age they may be.
Many people chose to believe that both nature and nurture define a persons behaviour and development. However, many still rage about the areas of homosexuality and intelligence. The coding of genes within humans help to define our more physical characteristics but it has never been known that these coded genes determine our intelligence or our personality or in fact our sexuality. The nature versus nurture debate continues to evoke controversy throughout psychology with one of the biggest controversial topics being a person's sexuality there have been many attempts to identify what is known as a “gay gene”, what is basically a scientific explanation for people actually being born gay. Many people believe there may be such a thing as a gay gene whereas others believe that sexual preference is down to early life experiences and opportunities. On the other hand, Francis Galton is a psychologist who believed that your intelligence is purely down to your genetics and encouraged intelligent people to have many children and discouraged less intelligent individuals from having children. In conclusion, I believe that nurture is the most important argument for the nature vs nurture debate.
