What Is Nature Vs. Nurture?

A final piece of current scientific-based evidence arguing for the side of nurture rather than nature in the nature versus nurture debate is the works of Arroyo, Nevárez, Segrin and Harwood (2012). The article written by Arroyo et al. (2012) is titled, The Association between Parent and Adult Child Shyness, Social Skills, and Perceived Family Communication. In the article, the authors build on previously acquired knowledge regarding shyness and how it affects people’s interactions and relationships with others. For example, in their article, Arroyo et al. (2012) bring attention to adverse childhood environments - environments where mental illness, abuse or alcoholism are prevalent, and how these environments are associated with shy tendencies
These findings suggesting that parents are a primary agent in the development of their children’s shyness, social skills, and perceived family communication. If a child has a shy parent, the nurture theory argues that the parent will end up teaching their children those shy behaviours and in turn, the child will also be shy. This argument is precisely what Arroyo et al. (2012) concluded in their study. These findings line up with the nurture theory arguing that it is who children are brought up by and how they are brought up that dictates their behaviours; it is not their genetics that predetermine their actions.

Despite the current evidence available, many concerns still arise that question the strength of the nurture side of the nature versus nurture debate. One of these questions is, can the way that a child is raised in one culture and how that upbringing may differ from a child of a different culture prove the nurture
As a child ages and lives their life obtaining new life experiences, would shy tendencies that a child displayed at a young age change and evolve? From a nurture perspective, the answer is yes. As a child encounters various environments, said environments would condition them to act in certain ways. For example, when a child moves away from home to live at either university or just on their own for the first time, their new living environment and potential roommates will now be the ones impacting their development and behaviour rather than the child’s parents. Away from their parents, the now-adolescent will build on their previously conditioned knowledge, and potentially alter their schemes based on their interactions within the new environments. The previous example is supported by evidence found in Genetic and Environmental Influences on Personality Trait Stability and Growth During the Transition to Adulthood: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study, a article written by Hopwood, Donnellan, Blonigen, Krueger, Mcgue, Iacono and Burt (2011). The article states, “individuals at this age are relatively free from external constraints such as the limitations on behavior imposed by parents during adolescence and the constraints imposed by formal adult roles that occur in adulthood” (Hopwood et al., 2011). In