Psychology: What Is Nature Or Nurture?

Nature vs. Nurture Nature versus nurture is a very controversial topic. It relates to how a human being becomes who they are. No one really knows if it is their heredity that makes them the way they are or if it’s their environment. There have been many studies of twins that are separated at birth and grow up in different environments and they are completely different even though they have the same genes. An example I found very interesting was one we discussed in class. There was a researcher, James Fallon, that was very interested in the topic of nature versus nurture and so he went to prisons and started testing some brains, specifically the brains of serial killers. He wanted to see what the brain of serial killers looked like and how they differed from someone who is an average human. "People with low activity [in the orbital cortex] are either free-wheeling types or sociopaths," he says. He found that
My neighbors have 3 kids. The first son, 10 years old, is very smart and is athletically gifted. The second son, 7 years old, is not as academically gifted. He has dyslexia and ADHD. I feel like the first son got way more attention and had more time spent on him for schooling and athletics. The second child was born when the first child was three. That is a very hectic age and I feel like he didn’t get as much one-in-one time. I don’t believe it is entirely the parent’s fault, but I believe that the environments were way different for each child. This isn’t as great of an example as the Fallon experiment, but I can see the difference. I believe that in both situations, nurture prevails. If a child isn’t nurtured while growing up, they can act way differently than a child that has had a great nurturing life growing up. I don’t believe heredity (nature) plays as large of a role. You can have the same genes as that of a psychopath and still be proven to act normal if you are nurtured