Nature vs Nurture:
Every person in this world has their own distinctive personality
and behavior. People may wonder why an individual may act the
way they do. Thus psychologists had put this into a study of
whether an individual’s behaviors are caused by hereditary or the
environment. This study is known as the nature-nurture debate.
This essay will discuss the nature-nurture debate in relation to how
it influences the human traits and behavior focusing on twin and
adoption studies. Furthermore the essay will also discuss how
hereditary and the environment influences on the behavior of
intelligence base on twin and adoption studies.
The debate of nature versus nurture had been dated back to the
time of Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle (Crooks &
Stein, 1991). In this context, according to Feldman (1997), nature
means the genetic influence on the individual’s behavior. In
relation to that, nurture means the effect the environment has on
that individual, for example influence of parents or friends. The
purpose of the nature-nurture debate is to explain the effect of
genetic influence and the environment on the development of
human trait and behavior (Crooks & Stein, 1991).
The history of nature-nurture debate started off with famous
philosophers like John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau
(Feldman, 1997). John Locke believed that human behavior is
solely influenced by nurture. By this is meant that human were
born with an empty brain and we learnt and developed through the
experiences in life (Myers, 2000). In contrast, Jean Jacques
Rousseau suggested that human development was due to
individual’s genetic factors which means that human trait and
behavior is more or less develop the moment of birth (Feldman,
1997). In the present time, psychologists share the same thinking
that both nature and nurture interdependently rely on each other in
human development (Westen, 2002). Clearly it can be...