Discovering the Mystery; Nature or Nurture

There has been a massive conflict about which factors literally structure and characterize

human behaviors and personality traits for many years. Those factors can be exemplified by

two rational theories namely nature and nurture which as a whole explain the reason why a

person has those characteristics in particular. Nature as a theory supports that DNA and

biological heredity have a bigger effect on human psychology or characteristics, because

people’s genes dictates their personality not their upbringings. On the other hand, nurture is

based on certain environmental effects on people during the process of growing. This theory

states genes or biological heredity is not very essential for a person’s character but nurture,

which simply means upbringings, is the most important factor. If these two contrasting ideas

are synthesized, it can be claimed that the most effective and rational theory about human

behaviors and personality is nurture, however, nature has an unavoidable impact on human

characteristics and structure as will be argued in this essay.

It is a well-known fact that family significantly affects human personality especially during

Childhood. When a baby is born, he starts to learn by imitating almost everything and

everybody around him. Naturally, the baby imitates his parents as a role model since parents

are usually the closest people to the baby. So, parents must be very careful about how to

behave when baby is around. The result can be disastrous if parents do not act carefully

around the baby. For instance, imagine a home atmosphere that parents of the house are

always arguing in an insulting way, shouting to each other near the baby. Because of this

home atmosphere, the baby’s potential for having psychological disorder is very high. When

this baby becomes an adult most likely he is going to be an aggressive and quick-tempered

person just only because of the insufficiency of favorable home atmosphere. What if the

parents were more careful about their methods and behaviors to the baby and also each other,

the result would be contrastingly different. In a favorable home atmosphere where parents

communicate kindly, respectfully to each other and being careful when baby is around, when

the child gain consciousness, presumably he is going to be a well-structured person because of

observing favorable communication between parents. Consequently, as the writer asserts, “…

nurture is the cause to our behavior as well as characteristics. Even though genes are what

give us that certain spunk to our personality, the environment has the power to alter it and

make us into the exact opposite, as some say” (Guirguis, 2004, p.1).

Secondly, the impact of environmental effects on people’s characteristics and personality is

going to be discussed, which are education and the place that oneself lives in. Education is

one of the most important factors that affect the person’s character. As Plato stated “Human

behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge”. It is a fact because

if there is insufficient knowledge, ego and arrogance starts to grow which is considered as

repulsive in common. However, in the very opposite situations when the person is well-

educated, oneself is tend to be more humble, kind and helpful with high level of self-esteem.

Place of residence or culture that a person lives and grows is also very essential for his

personality. Every culture or neighborhood has its own morals and customs. These traditions

are common and important with in the neighborhood, therefore the person is affected by these

traditions and morals during the process of growing. For instance, imagine a neighborhood

that the residents are conservatives. Mostly in conservative communities, females have less

freedom because of pressure. The residents and even your family interfere your almost

everything such as your apparel, friends, education. How favorable personality she can has

with in this situation. The result might be disastrous and she can even want to suicide. The

writer puts forward that “...Society is the influence in our environment that may tell us to act a

certain way, but if our inner eye does not motivate us to act that way, we most likely will not.

It can control and motivate us to act how society wants us to” ( Guirguis, 2004, p.1). To sum

up, Environment has a huge effect on person’s behavior and personality because the place of

residence and the level of education are very decisive about the person’s character.

Thirdly, there is another side of the coin which should not be ignored. Some scholars assert

that, nature is the cause of a person’s character and personality. Nature refers to a person’s

DNA and genes that passed down from his ancestors. For instance, imagine a person’s father

and grand-father has hypertension, the percentage of having the same illness is with the

person’s ancestors is very high because of the biological heredity. Homosexuality is a topic

that also debated. A biological experiment made about homosexuality by scientists. They

examine the DNA’s of random homosexuals and found out that they have 5 genetic markers

in common in a gene called Xq28 (Johnson, 2003, p.1). This theory highly supports the nature

theory by revealing the impact of DNA on person’s character. There are many other theories

about this debate and twin study is one of them. In 1979, Minnesota Centre for Twin and

Adoption Research commence this study by using monozygotic (identical) twins. They

separated the twins and gave them to different families that contrasting to each other. In the

end, they found out that, in spite of growing up in different families, monozygotic twins

characteristics are mostly similar (%70). Last of all, nature has a massive effect on person’s

personality and character through DNA’s and biological heredity.

Consequently, nurture is very important and decisive about a person’s character, because

human character is flexible and can be affected easily by certain experiences. This theory is

supported by another theory called the tabula rasa, which simply means, the person is a blank

page when he was born and he is going to fill his page with experiences and observations.

However, nature has an indispensable effect on character and personality that should not be

ignored. Genes can also be decisive about a person’s behaviors and attributes but it is not as

effective as nurture. It can be claimed that nurture is more rational then nature because of the

specific examples, theories and studies that exhaustively discussed in this essay.