There are three problems that arise at the intersection where philosophy and science cross that are fundamental to our understanding of our relationship with the natural world: the mind-body problem, the free will problem and then nature-nurture problem. In the history of psychology the biggest debate to this day is the nature-nurture debate because our sense of moral character depends on it. Behavioral genetics is the way that genes and environment work together to influence someone's behavior.
There are two different sides to this problem, nature and nurture.
Nature pertains to our genes in our cells that make up our body. Now we know that the differentiation of these cells is what gives us our physical attributes like hair color, eye color, height etc. The debate is on if these same genes give us our behavioral attributes like personality, intelligence and sexual orientation.
Nurture is the other half of the debate. The nurture theory states that genetic influence over behavioral traits may exist; however, the environmental factors are the real origins of our behavior. This includes the way that parents raise their children and the values that they instill in them from a young age. People on this side of the debate believe that nature and nurture are both factors in the behavior of humans while people on the nature side of the debate believe that it is all genetics.
Real Life Examples:
NATURE
1. Quantitative genetics have been used to study the effects that heredity and environment have on behavior.
2. Behavioral genes have been somewhat been proven to exist looking at fraternal twins. When fraternal twins are raised separately, they show similarities in behavior and response as if they had been brought up together.
3. John Watson, one of the strongest psychologists who propose environmental learning as a dominating side in the nature vs nurture debate, once said that he can be able to train a baby randomly chosen in a group of 12 infants, to become any type of specialist Watson wants. He stated that he could train him to be such regardless of the child's potentialities, talents and race.
4. Adoption studies have been set up to determine the difference in personalities between birth parents and adopted parents to try and correlate behavior with the way that someone is raised.
5. Dog breeders set up experiments when breeding dogs to see a difference in behavior. They breed an "aggressive" dog such as a chihuahua with a calmer dog such as a beagle and see if there are behavior differences.
click here for the study
Personally I believe that there is an influence of both nature and nurture in the development of behavior in humans. Being a science major it is easy for me to see the influence of genes and how they work on the development of physical characteristics. But at the same time I believe that the environment in which you grow up in has a major influence on the way that you behave and act.
There are two different sides to this problem, nature and nurture.
Nature pertains to our genes in our cells that make up our body. Now we know that the differentiation of these cells is what gives us our physical attributes like hair color, eye color, height etc. The debate is on if these same genes give us our behavioral attributes like personality, intelligence and sexual orientation.
Nurture is the other half of the debate. The nurture theory states that genetic influence over behavioral traits may exist; however, the environmental factors are the real origins of our behavior. This includes the way that parents raise their children and the values that they instill in them from a young age. People on this side of the debate believe that nature and nurture are both factors in the behavior of humans while people on the nature side of the debate believe that it is all genetics.
Real Life Examples:
NATURE1. Quantitative genetics have been used to study the effects that heredity and environment have on behavior.
2. Behavioral genes have been somewhat been proven to exist looking at fraternal twins. When fraternal twins are raised separately, they show similarities in behavior and response as if they had been brought up together. 3. John Watson, one of the strongest psychologists who propose environmental learning as a dominating side in the nature vs nurture debate, once said that he can be able to train a baby randomly chosen in a group of 12 infants, to become any type of specialist Watson wants. He stated that he could train him to be such regardless of the child's potentialities, talents and race.
4. Adoption studies have been set up to determine the difference in personalities between birth parents and adopted parents to try and correlate behavior with the way that someone is raised.
5. Dog breeders set up experiments when breeding dogs to see a difference in behavior. They breed an "aggressive" dog such as a chihuahua with a calmer dog such as a beagle and see if there are behavior differences.
click here for the study
Personally I believe that there is an influence of both nature and nurture in the development of behavior in humans. Being a science major it is easy for me to see the influence of genes and how they work on the development of physical characteristics. But at the same time I believe that the environment in which you grow up in has a major influence on the way that you behave and act.
Henlo Kourt! I really enjoyed reading your blog this week. I liked how you used a personal experience with your major and how you related it back to science. It really is quite amazing how our environment around us can influence the way we behave and act. Anyways, overall great job! love ya dude :)
ReplyDeleteHey Kourtney, great job on the blog. I love the influence your major has had over thinking about this topic and how you were able to infiltrate that into your post. I agree with you on nature and nurture both being huge factors on the influence of our personality. I could have used a little more explanation on the real life examples but other than that, great job.
ReplyDeleteKourtney! I love how you did Nature vs. Nurture debate because I did my task over that too! It was really nice to see a different point of view with how this debate has been going on for SO LONG. Learning about the nurture theory was really eye-opening! I would of liked to see more examples but overall great post!
ReplyDeleteHI Kourtney! I really enjoyed reading your blog because it gave me more on an insight on the debate of nature vs nurture. I would of like to see more examples applying to nurture and more of a comparison between the two but overall it was a really great blog !
ReplyDelete