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Do experiences shape our identity
How both nature and nurture influence human behavior
How nature and nurture affect human behaviour
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Human beings obtain their physical traits clearly through heredity. A nice boy gets the delicate shape of his nose from his mother. However, the question is, “Where does this ‘nice’ boy get his ‘nice’ trait from?” In the battle of ‘Nature versus Nurture’ in shaping an individual’s personality, nurture wins.
Heredity is not the key factor in contributing to our personality.
“People with high self-esteem and confidence get these traits not from their parents, but from their experiences.” –John Hoover
“Genetic material does not make us human. Genetic material does not lead us toward self-awareness. Genetic material does not spontaneously give us language skills.”
“Sigmund Freud a vast industry of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and social work has constructed itself on the turf of the improvability of human personality.”
Can people change their personality? There have been studies conducted on thirty year olds. They are interviewed every five years about their lives and it results that they really do change. Therefore, if we can change our personalities, during our lifetime, it is not genetic.
A survey on American therapists say that patients who are not satisfied with their lives strive to change and 80% of these patients are successful in changing for the better.
If our personalities were genetic, we would all act similar and how can it explain this? In a family line of criminals, the grandfather was a criminal. The father was a serious criminal. However, the sons...
Have you ever wondered, or thought where you have got your personality from? The debate over nature versus nurture is whether people like identical twins, for example, are born and raised by genetics,(nature) and if they are born and raised by influences and influenced by the environment around them(nurture). The debate over nature versus nurture is very important and cannot be ignored. Identical twins are different in many ways. Studies have shown that nurture, is more dominant than nature. My personality has also changed in many ways as I have been raised. So as you can see I am on the nurture side by far.
Sigmund Freud was first to take notice toward personality. “Like all of us, Sigmund Freud was a product of his times” (Myers 454). Freud took notice to a sequence of repetition within his patients. Freud had a large impact on psychology, history, and literary studies, however his most essential commitment was to focus on the unconscious mind. “In Freud’s view, human personality-including its emotions and striving- arises from a conflict between impulse and restraint-between our aggressive, pleasure- seeking biological urges and our internalized social controls over these urges” (Myers 455). His patients were experiencing a series of free association, which is also known as a state of unconsciousness. Freud explored unconscious with consciousness experience. The thought that individuals presented other reasons other than those they professed in earlier stages in time. “Freud’s
In today’s society, one is constantly surrounded by individuals with different behaviors. Some will sacrifice his or her life for a complete stranger. However, there is some individuals who would take advantage of the weak and poor for his or her own personal gain. Now the question arises, what makes human beings behave the way they do? Being the topic of conflict of psychology for years, one usually turns to the nature verses nurture theory for the answer to that question. Some believes that a person is born with a certain personality, others believe it is an individual’s atmosphere that determines his or her attitude, and some even trusts the idea that it is a combination of genes and environment that dictates the conduct of an individual.
In the year 1896, a new term “theory of psychoanalysis” was invented by Sigmund Freud in which “it refers to all the processes that take place in our mind of an unconscious way and to a form of treatment of the nervous disorders” (Rodriquez). Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was an Austrian neurologist who created and developed an entirely new approach to discover about the personality and the subconscious of the human. His creation in the psychology field was “at once a theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the relief of its ills, and an optic for the interpretation of culture and society” (Jay). Sigmund Freud is regarded as one of the most influential and controversial characters of the twentieth century due to his discoveries in many aspects of the field of psychology included Freud’s self-analysis that he left behind.
A layman would define personality as an individual’s characteristics in terms of how they think and behave. Many theorists, however, interprets personality differently resulting in various personality theories. Personality is determined by traits which are behaviours displayed by a person in most given situations. How a person reacts to common circumstances may also be used to foresee future behaviours. Traits are then categorized into types that allow easier comparisons to be made between each individual’s attributes. The focus of this paper would be on the biological aspects of personality whereby traits are thought to be inheritable through genetics and associated with the central nervous system. Behavioural genetics are research that makes use of results from studies done on family, twins and adoptions. The findings of how both genes and environment influences personality from the studies will be discussed. Some researchers found possible issues with the representativeness of such studies. The outline of Eysenck’s biological model of personality and arousal, Gray’s BAS/BIS theory and Cloninger’s biological model of personality will further explain the biological effect on personality.
Also, our thoughts and experiences are continually impacting our genes and future generations. He proves that what we do with our genome is just as important as the genes we inherit. We can not only prolong life but be in control of what goes on in our body. Our ancestors passed down their rare genetic expressions to make the most of them and to add our touches on them from the way we choose to live. Hopefully, before it is too late, we possess the power to shape our genetic inheritance and live while facing the truth about our genes. Our genes do not determine our destiny, we do. Given the opportunity, it is of great importance to transform our lives based on prior knowledge and experiences. Our decisions will forever be changing the course of our
Benis A.M. Toward Self & Sanity: On the Genetic Origins of the Human Character. Psychological Dimensions Publishers, New York, 1985
There are many factors that make your personality. One that is usually overlooked is birth order. Scientists have given traits to every child based on when they were born and most of them are correct. In The Birth Order Book by Kevin Leman stated,” Your birth order-whether you were first, middle, or later in the family-has a powerful influence on the kind of person you will be, the kind of person you will marry, the type of occupation you will choose, even the kind of parents you will be.” (3). Birth order is what makes someone who they are; these characteristics apply to almost every child depending when they were born in their family, but in rare cases, the child doesn’t act like the personality given to them by science.
Famous psychological theorists Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers were both the greatest researchers in our modern time. They both made a lot of advancement in psychological fields, clinical evidence and expertise. They both developed a theory of 'hidden' personality’, in which the psychologists theorized that people have a ‘hidden' personality within them, one which they are not aware of. This concept indicated that the human nature and the role play in rationale behind the human motivation. Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers do have same common in their theories. They were both influenced by working within their patients and shared the familiarity through the many years of clinical performance. Based on their experimental studies, Sigmund Freud believed that the human nature is inherently aggressive, and Carl Rogers sustained that the people are innately are good. Indeed, Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers have diverse opinions and different assumptions on the personality of a human. During the contemporary scientific research, I prefer to agree with Roger’s theory over the Freudian model because it is more in tune with findings of my experiences.
The ‘Nature versus Nurture’ argument can be traced back several millenniums ago. In 350 B.C., philosophers were asking the same question on human behaviour. Plato and Aristotle were two philosophers who each had diverse views on the matter. On the one hand, Plato believed that knowledge and behaviour were due to inherent factors, but environmental factors still played a role in the equation. Conversely, Aristotle had different views. He believed in the idea of “Tabula Rasa”- the Blank Slate theory supported the nurture side of the argument and put forward the view that everyone was born with a ‘Tabula Rasa’, Latin for ‘Blank Slate’. He proposed that “people learn and acquire ideas from external forces or the environment”. Was he right when he proposed that the mind is a blank slate and it is our experiences that write on these slates? This theory concluded that as humans, we are born with minds empty of ideas and at birth we have no knowledge or awareness of how we should behav...
Nurture has a more stronger influence on your personality than nature does. They both have a huge role in contributing to your personality development, it is a proven fact. Identical twins have a lot of differences, but also many similarities. Your personality can keep changing while you're growing up. Studies have shown that your personality is based off your surroundings and how you have been raised. From now on when you watch how people act, be sure to remember this debate and think about what their personality is based
Nature vs nurture debate is an old argument, I believe that nature and nurture both work together. Your genes are something that you are born with but your experiences and how you were raised also make you the person you are today. Experiences and opportunities help you develop your personality. It also provides a valuable training ground for later life. Human culture, behavior, and personality are cause primarily by nature and nurture not nature or
Personality is the study of an individual’s unique and relatively stable patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving over time and across situations and it is what distinguishes one individual from another. In the past changes in personality were thought to have only occurred in the developmental stages of childhood and solidifies in adolescence. After the teenage years it was thought to be set like plaster or the change seen to be inconsequential or absent( Srivastava, John, Gosling, and Potter, 2003). However, recent studies have suggested that changes in personality traits continue to occur throughout an individual’s lifespan due to multiple reasons.
Height, hair color, eye color and sex are just a few examples of ways our DNA has shaped us. But could it be possible that our DNA also effects the way we behave in society. It is possible that genetics effect us is more ways that we may have imagined. Dr. Peter B. Neubaur believes that shyness, eating disorders, obsessive behavior and psychological illness can all be traced back to our genetics. Sexual orientation is also believed to be derived from genes in our body which determine what sexual preference we prefer. Violence and other types of crimes can be linked back throughout a person’s lineage to witness that other family members have been committed similar crimes without ever meeting one and other.
Personality is the expression of a person’s traits according to ones feelings, mentality and behavior. It involves understanding individuals’ traits such as withdrawal and willpower and how various parts of an individual link together to form personality. Personality expresses itself from within an individual and is comparatively regular throughout in an individual’s life. Different people have different personalities dependent on factors such as environment and genetic composition. Our personality is dependent on the success or failure of our development in the eight stages of life. This is proposed by Erik Erikson. Success in the development stages lead to virtues while the failure leads to malignancies.