Nurture Over Nature There seems to be a universal debate on whether people act the way they do as a result of how they were raised and what they are surrounded with, or if their decisions and actions are simply determined by genetics. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of young British boys are in a plane crash and stranded on an island together with no adults, forcing them to get along and take care of themselves. The articles Nature Vs. Nurture Debate In Psychology by Saul Mcleod and The End of Nature Versus Nurture by Evan Nesterak both discuss experiments and conduct research regarding whether nature or nurture has a bigger role in individual behaviors. While there are many contrasting outlooks on whether people …show more content…
This is proclaimed in Lord of the Flies after Maurice propelled sand into another boy's eyes: “...though there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing” (Golding 60). This excerpt from Golding’s novel explains how Maurice was taught to treat others with good intent and expected to face the consequences of his actions, resulting in him feeling guilty for hurting someone and making him less likely to do it again. He was not born to naturally feel that hurting others was wrong, but his environment influenced him to feel that way. Similarly, in The End of Nature Versus Nurture psychologists conducted an experiment to explain how strongly people can be impacted by external factors. In this experiment they had rats of different descent be raised by a mother rat that would lick and groom the babies regularly, and they had another group that was raised with a lack of care. The study, made by a team of researchers at McGill University, proved that “It didn’t matter who you were born to—if you were raised by a low licking and grooming mother, you would grow up to be a more stressed out adult rat” (Nesterak
Have you ever questioned someone’s behavior and wonder what makes them behave the way they do? “Lord of the Flies,” by William Golding introduces a group of boys stranded on an island with no adult supervision which means no rules or authority. The group of boys face many conflicts and complications due to the situation they are in. Their behavior is to blame due to the environment and the situation they are in, however many believe that their behavior comes from internal “genetics” not external the “environment”. A person’s behavior can be influenced by their inner self which comes from our heredity, but in most cases I believe that behavior is influenced by the situation and the environment that is faced.
The nature vs. nurture controversy is an age old question in the scientific and psychological world with both camps having evidence to support their theories. The controversy lies in which is more influential in the development of human beings. While there is no definitive answer for this, it is interesting to look at each of them separately.
Could it be, that our personality lay more in the power of situation and less in the power of biological factors? The boys’ savage and immoral behavior, shown at the end of the novel, “Lord of the Flies” should be condemned on both the environmental situation they lived through and biological factors. This novel is based on the topic of nature versus nurture and although I agree that they both had an impact on the boys ' behavior, a more rational appeal would be that the power of the situation overruled the power of biological factors. The boys were very conservative in the beginning but the longer they stayed stranded the more selfish a majority of them became.Golding developed his first claim by first comparing the common attitudes expressed between the boys, then narrated how they had different perspectives for survivnig on the island, and finally illustrates the importance of guidance in order to maintain a properly functioned society
“The term “nature versus nurture” is used to refer to a long-running scientific debate. The source of debate is the question of which has a greater influence on development: someone's innate characteristics provided by genetics, or someone's environment. In fact, the nature versus nurture debate has been largely termed obsolete by many researchers, because both innate characteristics and environment play a huge role in development, and they often intersect”. (Smith, 2010 p. 1)
The nature vs. nurture debate: the nature side, are those such as biologists, psychologists and others in the natural sciences, argue that behavioral traits can be explained by genetics. Those taking the nurture side are sociologists and others in the social sciences, they argue that human behavior is learned and shaped through social interaction. This argument should be dismissed because you don’t have to look far to see that both genetics and our environment, plays a role in who we are and our behaviors. (Glass). The point is there is a complex relationship between nature and nurture, either one alone is insufficient to explain what makes us human. (Colt). Our heredity gives us a basic potential,...
Many will agree that ones behavior is based on a combination of nature and nurture, however time and time again we see nurture plays a larger role then nature when it comes to how one acts. If we look at The boys from The lord of the flies, as well as when we read monkey love, we see how their environment had such a huge impact on them first with how the boys turned from being responsible, and even coming up with a form of social structure, then ultimately turning completely savage based on following primarily one individual. Secondly Harlow and how he grew up unattached to his mother, and how it played such a huge role in his controversial experiment. Finally we will take a look at Bill Clement, a former NHL player, and how he links success to the act of nurture.
Nature versus nurture is a commonly debated topic in the scientific world. For example were all child molesters abused as children themselves or are their genes or other factors to blame for their bad decisions? Genes seem to determine much about children, such as eye color and height, but do they also determine behavior and overall health, or is the environment the children were raised in to blame? For example, when a child is misbehaving, is it the parents responsibility to take the blame for their offspring's behavior due to how they have chosen to raise their son or daughter, or is the child's genetic makeup to blame for their faults? Can a child's environment override the genes a child is born with?
I believe that people are a byproduct of both their inherited and inborn characteristics, as well as their environment. The nature versus nurture debate has long been a hot debate in the psychology world with evidence supporting both sides of the argument. It is hard to determine whether nature or nurture has more of an influence on our behaviors. For instance, you have a child who is a bully in a classroom. The question is then raised, is this child a bully because his genetic makeup created him to be more aggressive and less empathetic? Or is this child a bully because his home life fosters and rewards him for being aggressive? Or is his home life one where the parents are negligent and aggressive towards the child? If all of the above scenarios were true, then it would be relatively easy to state that the child’s bullying behavior is a byproduct of both his nature and his nurturing. Now let’s look at a professional athlete. Some say a person is born with the skill, hence the phrase natural born athlete. Now a child could be born with the innate aptitude to be an all-star athlete, however, no skill can succeed without practice. Therefore, that would bring to reason that a child could not have any skill to begin with, but with practice they become an all-star athlete. Both of these examples (the bully and the athlete) portray the interconnected and complex ideal of nature versus nurture, with neither providing substantial evidence that
A leading researcher at the University of Washington, Elizabeth Loftus, is specialized in the area of memory. She has recently discovered that when an occurrence is recalled it is not always re-created accurately. Loftus’ research revealed that instead, it is a reconstruction of the actual event. Newly collected information in relation to the topic being re-called can interfere with the memory you’re attempting to recall resulting in inaccurate recollection of the experience. If not be newly collected information it could be from other sources, such as the previous times you’ve told it, experiences from a television episode, a movie, or many other factors. You may have even experienced this yourself when you’ve been in the same place with another person for an event but have two un-matching stories of how the story took place and what occurred.
The Nature-Nurture debate questions how much of an individual's development is due to nature and
Nurture is constituted by the influence of millions of complex environmental factors that form a child's character. Advocators of nature do not believe that character is predetermined by genes, but formed over time. Although often separated, nature and nurture work together in human development. The human conscience is neither innate from birth or entirely shaped through experience, instead, genetics and environmental influences combine to form human behavior, character, and personality traits that constantly change and develop throughout life. The debate on nature versus nurture has existed for thousands of years.
One of the hottest debates is and has been nature vs nurture for years, but what is the difference between the two? Nature is what people think of as already having and not being able to change it, in other words, pre-wiring (Sincero). Nurture is the influence of experiences and its environment of external factors (Sincero). Both nature and nurture play important roles in human development. Scientists and researchers are both trying to figure out which is the main cause in development because it is still unknown on which it is. The best position to side with is nature. Nature is also defined as genetic or hormone based behaviors (Agin). Regardless of the involvement in everyday life, or nurture, this argumentation centers around the effect genes have on human personalities. Although it is understandable on reasons to side with nurture, nature is the better stand in this controversy. Reasons to side with nature is because of genes and what genes hold. Genes is what
Undoubtedly, humans are unique and intricate creatures and their development is a complex process. It is this process that leads people to question, is a child’s development influenced by genetics or their environment? This long debate has been at the forefront of psychology for countless decades now and is better known as “Nature versus Nurture”. The continuous controversy over whether or not children develop their psychological attributes based on genetics (nature) or the way in which they have been raised (nurture) has occupied the minds of psychologists for years. Through thorough reading of experiments, studies, and discussions however, it is easy to be convinced that nurture does play a far more important in the development of a human than nature.
The Effects of Nature and Nurture on Shaping of Behavior The nature/nurture investigation has been studied for many years by psychologists and it is a subject that is still in debate today. It brings up the question, how is our behaviour shaped, and the two sides of the answer are nature and nurture. Behaviour in the context of a human being can be described as; the way humans act and think in situations. What is meant by nature and nurture?
The nature versus nurture debate is an old issue within the field of psychology. “The nature-nurture issue is a perennial one that has resurfaced in current psychiatry as a series of debates on the role that genes (DNA) and environments play in the etiology and pathophysiology of mental disorders” (Schaffner) The debate is essentially about what is inherited (nature) and what is experienced by environmental factors (nurture) and how they affect human development. Naturally, the nature versus nurture debate relates to many controversies such as intelligence, gender identities, violent behaviors, and sexual orientation. There are countless studies on whether intelligence is an inherited trait or if it is influenced by environmental factors.