The nature versus nurture argument looks into the relative significance of an individual's innate qualities nature that is nativism versus personal experiences nurture that is behaviorism, in causing individual differences in behavioral and physical traits. The phrase "Nature versus nurture" was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton during his discussion on the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement.
To differentiate the effects of genes and environment, geneticists of behavioral area of expertise twin studies and perform adoption. These seek to explain the variance in a population into environmental and genetic components. This move from individuals to populations makes a fatal difference in the way we view nurture and nature. This difference is perhaps highlighted in the quote attributed to psychologist Donald Hebb who is believed to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?"(Meaney M. 2004).
Although "nurture" has previously been referred to as parent to children care, mothers playing the greatest role, this term is now regarded by some as any environmental (not genetic) factor in the contemporary nature versus nurture debate. This is why the definition of nature has been improved to include influences on development resulting from prenatal, parental and peers experiences, and spreading to factors such as marketing and socio-economic status.
The best way to determine the influence of genes and environment on a given trait is studying the behavior of twins. In a case study, twins were raised up in different environments; later it was found that the twins had different family environments but the same genes. In another case study identical twins reared together are favorably compared to fraternal twins reared together.
Following the above discussed issue it is difficult determine whether what affects a person most is the genes or the environment in which they are raised as both of them play role that are of almost equal magnitude to ones development.
REFFERENCES.
1. Meaney M. (2004) The nature of nurture: maternal effects and chromatin remodelling, in Essays in Social Neuroscience, Cacioppo, JT & Berntson, GG eds. MIT press. ISBN 0-262-03323-2
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