Nature vs. Nurture has always been a topic I have read a lot about previously and been interested in. Nature is development based on genetics and nurture deals with environmental factors that come into play. In development, obviously both play a huge role. I personally believe that nurture plays a larger role in child development though. Children are influenced by their friends and peer pressured at school. That is inevitable. I agree with John Locke with the tabula rasa theory; a belief that the mind is a blank slate at birth, with experience determining our knowledge. For instance, my older brother is 10 years older than me. He grew up in a different time period, area and with different outside influences than I did. He lived closer to the city, because it was my parents first house. I grew up in more rural area. My parents had more money, I was at a better school, and had completely different experiences than my brother. However, we do have similar genes with the same mom and dad. We are similar in some ways but he also turned out a lot different than me, different personality and morals. This is why I believe more in the nurture side. I hope as we read and learn more about this topic, I will get a broader knowledge and different outlook. I would like to read psychologists who favor the nature side, debate.
I can relate in that such experience. A friend of mine who had grown up near Jersey city was very much different when he moved from their to the suburbs. He was a good guy but part of his attitude and way he dealt with people and ideas reflected much of his city upbringing. He was a bit tough and also would be direct if someone would start something with him. I also agree with the seeing the nature side of debate as well, we tend to when I read books like this as they tend to focus on the nurture side of things neglecting the other.
ReplyDeleteThe nature vs. nurture debate has always interested me as well. I definitely agree that nurture plays a bigger role in development, especially when dealing with personality. I think factors such as intelligence or athleticism have more to do with genetics. However, environmental factors definitely play a larger role in things such as personality and mannerisms. I would say that as a child grows up, their personality is developed first through their genetics, but then as they get into adolescence it is fully developed through environmental factors. That's why it is so important to make sure that children are hanging around people that are good influences, especially in their teenage years. I also agree with you regarding the tabula rasa theory. I think everyone is born with a clean slate and then our knowledge is gained through experiences and interactions. Something that would be interesting would be to take a set of triplets and raise each of them in a different setting: in the city, the country, and the suburbs. Although this obviously wouldn't be a practical scenario, it would be interesting to see how the personality development would differ between these 3 individuals. Their genetics would obviously predict that they would have similar developments if raised together, but it would be interesting to see the differences in their personalities if they were raised separately in different environments.
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