Family History and Cultures

Nature vs. Nurture

To any decently educated or aware person, the "nature versus nurture" argument is nothing new. Something else that is not new is the idea that while there are arguments for both, there always seems to be one idea that is more prevalent and "true" than the others. Such is the case with the microcosm of "nature versus nurture" that is in play when it comes to the work of Patricia Greenfield. Her initial statements in a recent article are very much a framing of a "nature versus nurture" argument and then she provides her version of the answer. While some might disagree with what Ms. Greenfield has to say, it is fairly clear that she is rather spot-on in her analysis and decision when it comes to the subject in question.

Analysis

The primary so-called battlefield of nature versus nurture that Ms. Greenfield approaches and talks about is the concept of whether ability and competency assessments can cross cultural lines. In other words, if someone is deemed to be adept at a skill in the United States, the question becomes whether a transfer of those skills to a different country like Kenya or Australia would be something that could be done with no change in perceived ability. Ms. Greenfield points out that some people say yes and others no. However, Greenfield's verdict is that it is not true that skill inventories can just transfer over and it is entirely because of the fact that cultures are different and thus there is no notion that there is anything near a 1:1 transfer ratio when it comes to the shifting of skill sets from one culture or country to another. In other words, what serves well to get one by in Australia is not necessarily (and probably won't) work well (if at all) in other countries like Kenya or Libya, just to name two rather obvious ones. The reasons for this are explained by Ms. Greenfield are obvious and make sense and she absolutely proves the idea suggested in the title of the article, that being "you can't take it with you" (Greenfield, 1997).

Of course, there are some skills and traits that transfer well and there are plenty of cultures that are similar enough that the merging from one culture to another is not nearly as traumatic or "shocking" as would be the case with certain other pairs. Ms. Greenfield is not really presenting any new ideas but she absolutely shows the dichotomy of ideas that exists out there and then she asserts how she comes down on the issue. She touches upon a number of important related topics along the way including cultural psychology, how IQ is quantified based on culture, how psychology itself varies by culture and how cross-cultural variability is absolutely a real thing. What does make the article novel is that Greenfield presents a dueling set of ideals and ideas in a clear-cut and honest way and then she makes an effort to prove that competencies do not cross cultural lines as easily as some might thing. There is clearly the debunking of one theory and the substantiation and argument for another (Greenfield, 1997).

This is all relevant because the business and academic world (not to mention social media) are all the more global nowadays and this means that people should keep in mind that the norms and values of differing cultures (even similar ones) can be very different. Regardless of whether traits and patterns in cultures are environmental (nurture) or genetic (nature), it is clear that patterns are what they are and this is something that is absolutely true across cultures. While red hair and brown eyes are absolutely genetic, there are other things like anxiety, nervous habits and so forth that could be a little of both or they could be one or the other. The author of this response has seen a little of both in the author's family history. Some outcomes and traits are clearly the result of environment while others seem to happen even when they are resisted or less than acknowledges, such a propensity for anxiety even without reason. A reflection on this whole concept is that we are not condemned to repeat the mistakes and problems of our forefathers but some people have to cope and flex more than others, for whatever reason.