The debate concerning the factors influencing personal development can be characterized as one of the most heated and long-lasting ones in psychology. The issue is discussed from the point of view of nature and nurture factors affecting it. The first party of this debate supports the position that nature is the main factor influencing development of personality, while the other party argues that the most important point for development is nurture. As far as I am concerned, development of personality depends on nurture mostly; however, genetics or nature affects this process considerably. Thus, my position is rather a combination of these two view points; still, as the task is to support the argument for one party I would agree with those who support nurture. Generally, numerous researches provide significant facts proving how upbringing is important for forming particular way of thinking and acting of any individual.
Speaking about those factors which encourage me to support the party of those who argue that nurture is more important, I would mention numerous researches done through decades in order to prove the connection between the environment the person is developing in and the actual result of it for any particular individual. First of all, the first group of experiments is related to children whose parents were condemned for a certain criminal activity. According to Berger (2000), a row of such researches resulted into showing that if children are separated from their problematic parents providing a bad example for them and educated in accordance to exalted moral principles they will become deserving members of society. The next group of researches which is rather important for my conclusion as to the importance of nurture is the researches in the families of talented people.
According to Cherry (n. d.), the findings of researches conducted in the families of especially talented people showed that their talents very often are not transmitted to their children; this happens especially when the children are not trained in the area where their parents managed to show outstanding results. Such researches suggest that in order to develop certain abilities and skills sufficient training is required, and natural dispositions may not be enough for achieving significant results. Thus, genetic material inherited form one’s parents is, of course, important, but not enough for developing any particular characteristics of an individual.
Further, the next group of researches which seems important for making conclusions in the area of nurture and its connection to the development of a personality is the researches done with children who originated from parents having no special abilities in certain areas, but who managed to acquire incredible skills and abilities as a result of training. According to Berger (2000), the children having no genetic inclination to peculiar activities were trained during many years and acquired outstanding results in the areas demanding exceptional capabilities. Such researches help to draw a conclusion that sufficient training along with diligence of an individual oneself appears more important than genetic aptitude. In addition, scientist also specify on certain periods in people’s lives which are especially influenced by nurture. According to Glass (n. d.), children show outstanding susceptibleness to educating and training at an early age. The author mentions the following example,
Kimberly Saudino, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at Boston University who studies infant and toddler twins, says that in the first few years, there’s genetic influence on three broad personality traits: activity (energy, vigor, and movement), task orientation (attention and persistence), and affect-extroversion (emotionality and sociability) However, where similar adult traits show close to 50 percent genetic influence, in babies these characteristics are only 20 to 40 percent heritable, meaning that in babyhood personality tends to be more influenced by environment. (Glass n. d., par.34, 38).
Thus, when the issue of nature vs. nurture is discussed the age of an individual is to be taken into consideration as well. This conclusion is also supported by the other Glass’ finding, When it comes to personality, Nancy Segal, Ph.D., author of Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us about Human Behavior, and her colleagues have observed that the influence of genes increases as we age (Glass n. d., par.39).
Again, this statement shows that the matter of nurture should be approached carefully and with regards to numerous factors including age.
Of course, the position of opponents of the importance of nurture is also supported by numerous weighty factors. For me the most important researches and conclusions made as a result of these researches are those ones which are exercised with identical twins. There exist numerous reliable sources relating the stories of identical twins who were separated at an early stage of their life, but when they met again after decades they found out numerous miraculous similarities among their lifestyles and personalities inclining their education, occupation, preferences to clothing, personal likes and dislikes and so on. Such cases especially make me think that personal development is marked by the combination of both nature and nurture.
In conclusion, my position toward the difficult issue of nature vs. nurture has a shift to the point of view of those who support the importance of nurture rather than nature. However, taking into consideration all the facts available nowadays in the area of these researches I have no choice but to agree that personal development is affected by both nature and nurture.
References
Berger, K. S. (2000). The developing person: Through childhood and adolescence. New York: Worth Publishers.
Cherry, K. (n. d.). How Genetics Influence Child Development. Web.
Glass, J. (n. d.). Nature Vs. Nurture? Web.