A Personal Controversy: The Nature Vs. Nurture

The human mind is an endless, vast field scientists have explored for years and will continue to explore for centuries to come. This complex machine has interested people for years, and has indeed sparked many controversies. One of which happens to be the nature vs. nurture conflict, which argues whether a specific behavior in a human is passed from generation to generation via genetics, or rather taken in over the course of the person’s life. The nature take on things believes in heredity, predisposition, and instinct forming human behaviors. The converse argument, nurture, argues that one’s behavior is based solely on the environments surrounding the specimen, and looks at every facet of one’s environment, from the food they eat to the people

For instance, the relationships you make or break can depend on your outlook on life, which is often mostly shaped by your personality. More so, one could commit serious acts of violence, or great acts of compassion while being under the influence of a strong personality. This has been demonstrated countless times in human history, like aforementioned, when arrogant, yet steadfast men have raped entire societies by using their influential personalities to impact a group of people to move to commit such heinous crimes. Aside, this paper is not for discussing past atrocities. Personality goes a long way in shaping the creation and prosperity of people, nations, and empires, and this is mainly agreed with in the scientific community. Something, however, that is not, is whether or not human personality is based on nature or nurture.

Nature and nurture both do have profound effects on personality, however, personality is mainly influenced by nurture, as one’s personality has been proven to change over time as one ages, matures, and experiences more of the world, and personality development has been described as “a lifelong process” 1. (Christian Kandler, The Case of Neuroticism and Extraversion, 2012,

Genes can only provide so much for someone when it comes to who you are as a person, and your environment proves to be a much stronger influence on personality, especially as you age. Personality is a very strong influence on people and societies as a whole, and has been since the beginning of time; and I think that the development of personality is just as diverse as the ever evolving world it works so hard to