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NATURE VERSUS NURTURE ON BEHAVIOR

For many years there are controversy among psychologist about

whether nature or nurture affect an individual behavior. The controversy has

continued for a long time and remain unresolved until now. The controversy

are regarding the relative importance of nature or nurture. Sometimes we

wonder how come we are talkative, sensitive, romantic, aggressive and so

on. What are the things that cause these behaviors to occur? Are our

behavior have been inherited by our parents or ancestors or it is because of

our environment? In what terms should the behavior can be explain? It is

nature or nurture? My purpose of doing this term paper is to determine and

identify which aspect influence the outcome of human behavior. Human

behavior have five major domains that is cognitive abilities, personality,

social attitudes, psychological interest and psychopathology. There are three

factors that influence an individual’s behavior that is nature, nurture and

both.

One approach that been used to answer this controversy is behavioral

genetic. It study on the relative influences of heredity and environment on

behavior. Behavioral geneticists assume that differences in behavior among

individuals can be accounted for by the to major factors heredity and

environment. The technical term that refers to the portion of the difference or

variation among subjects that can be attributed to heredity is heritability.

( Witing, 2001). In this controversy, heritability is the central concept. .

Heredity is the sum of the traits and tendencies inherited from a person

parents and other biological ancestors. Heritability is a statistical term that

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refers to the amount of variability in a trait in a given population that is due

to genetic differences among the individuals in that population. (Martin,

Carlson & Buskist, 2007). It show much of the variability found in scores is

due to heritability or nature and how much is due to environment.

An individual nature have a great influence on one behavior. Certainly,

an individual behavior occur as a result of inherited characteristics. As usual,

the characteristics that can be see that always be passed on from parents are

skin color, height, weight and eye color. Whether we realize or not, these

characteristics actually may affect behavior. Hereditary is an important

influence in individual development. Hereditary influences may produce brain

damage, retardation, color blindness and other characteristics that have a

significant effect on the behavior that engage in an individual. For example,

a short and fat boy might involve in sumo wrestling or taekwondo but it is for

more likely that he will involves in basketball. An individual with brain

damage may have difficulty in social life and in learning process.

The basic principles in nature is genetic. Inheritance operates through

genetic materials that called genes. It found in the nuclei of all human calls.

All cells body contain microscopic structured chromosome are long strands of

deoxyribonucleic (DNA ). DNA strands of sugar and phosphate that are

connected by nucleotide, molecules of adenine, thymine, guanine and

cytosine and will go through the process that called double helix and become

nucleotide molecules. The nucleotide molecules directs the synthesis of

protein molecules that regulate the biological and physical development of

the body and organs. The genes that go through the process of protein

synthesis influences how the neurons function and indirectly influence

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behavior and mental process. (Martin, Carlson & Buskist, 2007). The

combining process of protein and how the structures become influences how

an individual response to environmental stimulation. It means, it is the

influence on how an individual view herself and how other responds.

An individual environment influences the outcomes of one behavior.

Environment means any external factors or conditions which may influences

an organism. Events that we experience in our environment play an

important role. We makes adaptation according to the environment in order

to survive. Environment changes every day across time span. This means,

what we learn and everything that happened in daily life are included in

environment influences. Environment also be referred as the physical and

social environment. According to Martin, Carlson & Buskist (2007),

environment exposure have a high tendency on human behavior and mental

process. For example, exposure to smoke during pregnancy can cause

retardation to the baby.

Another environment influences is social environment. Social

environment contains of culture, ethnicity and identity. According to Ritcher

(2006) in Lahey book Psychology An Introduction (2009), said that all the

people around us especially that are connected to us, such as parents,

siblings, friends and neighborhood are profoundly influence over behavior.

Social environment means the culture, ethnicity and identity. Culture refer to

the patterns or behaviors, beliefs and values that are shared by a group of

people. This include, language that been used, superstitions, moral beliefs

and food preferences. Ethnic identity means each person’s sense of

belonging to particular ethnic group and they share beliefs, attitudes, skills,
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music and ceremonies. (Lahey, 2009). For example, in Chinese custom, they

prefer round dining table, use chopsticks and bowls. Another than that,

Chinese parents hope their child to be born in the year of dragon. This is

because, they beliefs that the baby will bring them a life of luxury,

respectability and longevity . This social environment can be see in how an

individual having their daily life and how they response to the environment.

Do the differences among individuals depend more on differences in

heredity or differences in environment? For example, if melody is better in

dancing than Nicole, the reason could be different genes or better training or

both. It is hard to determines which one influence more on individual

behavior. In psychology, there are study been conducted in order to answer

this question. This study focus mainly on how the nature and nurture

emphasize their function and how it influence human being.

In nature influence, genes play an important term. Lahey (2009) in

Psychology An Introduction said that genes usually operate through gene-

environment correlations and gene-environment interactions. Gene

environment correlations refer to the genes that influence our behavior often

co-occur with aspects of our environment that influence the same aspects of

behavior. Gene-environment interactions means the phenomenon in which

genes influences how environment influence us and environment influence

how genes influence us. For example of gene-environment correlation is, an

individual who are antisocial are because of their parent genes that are been

passed. Example of gene-environment is, two people with same background

and genes often respond differently to the same environment.

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In psychology there are two evidence in order to determine the

contribution of heredity and environment. The first evidence is the research

compare monozygotic (one egg) and dizygotic twins (two eggs).According to

Lahey, this study give many information about natural experiment. These

twins, have the same parents, live in the same neighborhood, have the same

siblings and are raised during exactly the same period in history but differ in

the degree of their genetic similarity and how they behave. Second, is the

studies of adopted children. Studies of adopted children, conducted by Angoff

(1988) and Plomin (1994) shown that genes influences human behavior.

Although, an adopted children spent no time living together with their

biological family but they still have their biological parent behavior especially

intelligence.

As a conclusion, certain tendencies can be passed through genes but

some specific behavior that the parents learned cannot be passed. In

general, it is accepted that nature and nurture are interact. An individual is

the outcome of their parents and how they behave and respond to

circumstance is influence both by nature and nurture influences. This means,

behavior is the result of the combined effects of hereditary background, past

and present environmental experience and the interaction of inherited and

learned characteristics. Both influences, affect behavior as a separate terms

and still interact.

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References

Huffman, K. (2007). Psychology In Action (8th ed). United State of America :

John Miley & Son Inc.

Martin, G. N., & CARLSON, N. (2007). Psychology (3rd ed). Pearson Education

Limited.

Witing, A. F., (2001). Introduction To Psychology (2nd ed). McGraw Hill Inc.