Personal Identity: Nature Vs. Nurture

Be yourself, be who you are. When you hear those two expressions it might appear that they mean a similar thing, however they are not. Children are born into this world as a little baby with no ideas, but as you grew up, you developed your own identity. Did your identity really develop or was it in your mind since birth? These questions lead to the great debate between nature versus nurture. Nature is the belief you were already born with your personality while nurture is the belief that your personality is developed based on influences in your life beginning when you were a child. These theories are different, both makes us believe who we are. I believe that nature is much more influential on a child’s development than nurture is, but both

Genes mostly influence a person’s physical aspects, not their personality. All children are bad at some point in their childhood, including me. In my childhood, my brother, Sam, and I always fight sometimes physical but mostly verbal. For example, my brother spilled a glass of milk on my school project that I had been working on for hours. My project was completely ruined and I had to start all over. I was so mad at him that I hit him and then he hit me back and we got into a huge fight. A little later, my parents came home and did not think I had any right to hit him or do anything to him because he ruined my project. In my parent’s eyes, I did something really bad and I got in to more trouble than my brother did for ruining my project. This shows how humans learn, bringing us back to the theory of nurture, which makes learning things makes us who we

If I had grown up being an only child, I would be a completely different person than I am today. I would have never learned to be myself and not to try and copy other people. Without having had to live in my brother’s shadow and having to live up to the high expectations he set with my parents, I would never push myself to my best potential just to outdo him. My environment and the people around me have made me who I am today.

As we grow older, we are influenced by the outside world, social media, and friends that changes who we are. Growing up my parents always told me that stealing was bad or being nice to people no matter what is a must, but social media easily changes these beliefs, or one of my friends could convince me that, one time, stealing was okay. Humans are constantly changing and easily influenced, which proves that nothing about who we are is fixed, but nature still plays a huge