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Nature vs Nurture

Spoiler Alert: It's Neither

By Danni GreerPublished 7 years ago 6 min read
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There once was a boy who was energetic as a young child, subdued as a teenager. He because increasingly troubled as his family life broke down. His mother and father divorced, and his violent fantasies grew. He committed his first act of murder just after he graduated from high school. For the next thirteen years, this man lured other young men to his home where he killed them and mutilated their corpses. In total he killed 17 men. His name was Jeffery Dahmer. Dahmer is an extreme case of deviancy, but the question arises. What made Jeffery Dahmer behave this way? Was he just born with the predisposition to be a serial killer or did his social circumstances lead to his actions?

These questions go to the root of the ongoing argument of nature versus nurture. The arguments on both sides raised good points. On the nature side, there are many good studies showing connections between genetics and certain behaviors. On the nurture sides, there are many psychological studies that show connects between broken homes and troubled childhood and deviant behavior later in life. The truth is that human behavior is parts of both nature and nurture. Jeffery Dahmer admitted that he had compulsions toward necrophilia and murder starting at 14, but he may have never acted upon those without the breakdown of his parents’ marriage a few years later. Also if he had never been inclined to compulsions of necrophilia and murder, he may never have considered them, even after his parents’ marriage fell apart.

Nature, in this context, is in reference to the impact a person’s genetic code has on their innate personality. It is widely accepted that our genetic code determines what we look like from height to hair color to genitals. It is less accepted that the genetic differences determine what impact religion has or who people are attracted to, even though there are still studies that display both of these theories as fact. Your genetics influence your weight and health, both mental and physical. Mental disabilities like autism are biologically present from birth. People with a family history of cancer are more likely to get some form of cancer. If humans cannot control it, then it is considered nature.

Nurture, on the other hand, is how a person is treated during their developmental years. It refers to the events experienced that contributed to their personality. For example, a child being abused throughout their early childhood would be nervous and shy. They would be scared of sudden movements or loud noises. Those fears are not something they were born with, but they learned the behaviors to keep themselves safe. If their abuser is screaming, then they would hide, so if someone else starts screaming, for whatever reason, they would also hide. This is because that is what they know. However, a child who grew up in a safe household, and never experienced physical abuse, but has experienced verbal abuse, would not shy away from sudden movements or sounds. This child would still be shy, but there would be no physical markers that they have been abused. This child would most likely suffer from low self-esteem and anxiety. They would be prone to display the same language they hear at home, like any child would, and would be likely to come across as a bully. If human behavior is shaping other human behavior, then it is considered nurture.

To be quite honest, the debate of nature versus nurture has become much of a moot point. Sociologists generally agree that how a person is raised contributes to how a person behaves. Genealogists generally agree that a person’s DNA, their genetic code, contributes to how a person behaves. Both sides know they are correct in what contributes to a personality, and both sides are correct. It’s not to say that either side can ever win the argument, nor that either side can lose. The reason being that they are both correct.

You cannot have nature without nurture. They balance each other out. For example, a person can be born with the predisposition for violence, but if they are raised in a healthy home, they may never act on it. On the other side, a person from a broken or abusive home may become more caring or understanding, rather than shy or scared. Take for example twin sisters from the same household. Their parents move around every three or four years. The two girls grow up with the same resources available to them, the same teachers, the same classes, and the same schools. One of the girls is a popular person. She fits in, and she gets good grades. She tries hard for what she needs and even harder for what she wants. The other twin is a social outcast who seems to attract loners and other outcasts of every breed. She does not try very hard. She is very smart, but does not try fro things that do not interest her.

Remember, the girls are twins. They look similar, and have similar DNA. However, they are very different people. They were raised the same, yet the behave differently. How do you explain this? The girls are raised the same, but they are not. The saying goes that the same boiling water that softens a potato hardens an egg. To clarify, the girls in my example are fraternal twins. Because they are fraternal they do not look exactly the same, nor is their DNA as close to each other’s as identical twins’ DNA would be. The point still stands. Their environment made them the same, but their genetics made them different.

Here is another example. There are two unrelated men. One is Hispanic and the other is African American. The African American man was from a single parent household and was an only child living in a good neighborhood. His mother worked as a surgeon at the hospital. The Hispanic man was from a family of six that lived in a house that was too small. Both of his parents worked whatever job they could find. Both men made good grades throughout high school. They both participated in the similar clubs at different schools. They both worked in retail: The Hispanic man at Walmart; the African American man at Lowes. They both went to law school and eventually ended up working at the same law firm together.

These men came from severely different backgrounds with the only stated commonality being how they behaved and the fact that they are both minorities. They looked nothing alike, came from different neighborhoods and family structures, and yet they turned out to be very similar in their interests and personality. A couple things not mentioned earlier are that both men we raised in loving, healthy emotional environments and attended the same megachurch. This provided a similar level of nurture in both men during the developmental phases of their lives. Their genetic backgrounds made them different, but their inspirations and environments made them similar.

As you can see from my examples, both nature and nurture are important to a person’s personality. You cannot rely simply on one or the other. It is like the cultural ideas of having a balance between chaos and harmony or good and evil. One cannot exist without the other, nor can one be overruled in favor of the other. There is an agreement between the two parts that decided a personality, though one side may carry more influence in individual people than the other. The answer to the question of is it nature or nurture is a relatively simple one. It is not an ‘either or’ question, as it appears to be. There is a third answer that should not be so easily dismissed. That answer is both.

Reference

"Abuse Victim Characteristics." Domestic Abuse Information. N.p., 2002.

Web. 7 Mar. 2017.

"Jeffrey Dahmer." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 21 July 2016.

Web. 3 Mar. 2017.

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About the Creator

Danni Greer

I'm from Virginia as a genderfluid person. I write poems, stories, and personal essays trying to deal with stuff I face every day. If you like what you read, please consider supporting me on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=18960818

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