Nature and Nurture

Nature versus Nurture

The nature and nurture are always in the spotlight because of the nature versus nurture debate. Psychologists have been trying to discover which one has a stronger impact in people. This debate has involved important thinkers such as Plato and Descartes and thousands of psychologists around the world. This debate centers in genetic inheritance and the environment effect in people’s personality. There are two kinds of psychologists involved in this the ones that are called nativists and behaviorists. However, can nature and nurture develop themselves without each other? Can one be stronger than the other one? It might be possible the development of genes without a little intervention of the environment. Together with this debate appeared different theories such as Bandura’s social learning theory, Freud’s theory of aggression and Chomsky's theory of Language Acquisition Device. There are different experiments related to Nature and Nurture like the Bobo doll's experiment.

“Things that do not depend primarily on learning are due to physical factors or nature (McMahon 278)”. Nature is better known as genes inheritance, nature is the one related to our physical characteristics, mental abilities and behavior. All those facts are believed to be in our genes and no environment. “Nativists believe that human abilities and developmental processes are innate and hard-wired at birth (Web).” Nativists believe that genes are the responsible for the people’s abilities and development. “Things that are learned are due to the environment, or nurture (McMahon 278)”. Nurture is known as environmental factors that are the responsible to affect people according to their experience, what they have learned and what the event that make them learn it.

Involved with this nature-nurture controversy can be found theories that support the nativists and behaviorists part: “ Chomsky believes that every child has a "Language Acquisition Device" or (LAD) which...