The Nature vs Nurture Debate and Which Wins

Nature vs. Nurture

Introduction

For some time now there has been an ongoing debate in the psychology field on whether “Nature” or “Nurture” plays a bigger role in the shaping of one’s life, and although researchers have had many debates, the verdict is still out among many. Some believe that nature is responsible for dictating how one enters into life and sets the stage for what develops; others look at evidence indicating the impactful role of nurture—of environments that help the person to grow and develop. For the record, “Nature” refers to the genes or hereditary factors that come from the parents influence who that child is, and “Nurture” refers to what's going on around them and how they were raised. Even though nature might play a big role, there are many reasons for one to highlight the role that nurture plays in shaping a child into an adolescent and then an adult. It is not unreasonable to believe that one’s environment and/or culture have a more significant role when it comes to how a child may act growing up. However, since the evolutionary age of Darwin, scientists and academics have latched onto the idea that it is nature that determines one’s ultimate traits, behaviors, and that predicts one’s development. This paper will show that when it comes to nature and nurture it really should not be thought of as an either/or situation: the fact is that nature and nurture work together to shape an individual over time. Without nurture, there is nothing to form and direct nature. Without nature, there is nothing to be nurtured. Thus, one should view them as on the same developmental team—not as contestants in an academic zero sum game where only one may survive. The development of every human being is determined both by nature and by nurture.

Why Nature

The idea that nature is responsible for all development is not new, and was not new when the Darwinian movement of evolution got going in the 19th century; however, it was helped along substantially by the atheistic, materialistic doctrine of the evolutionists, who posited that there is no intelligent design or creative intelligence at work in nature—only an evolutionary by-product of nature’s need to survive. Nature was highlighted as the driving force of all human development by Darwin and the Darwin school that followed. Galton was one of the main advocates of the idea that the human faculty and its development was wholly based upon nature. The notion of evolution and of natural selection was important to Galton’s theory because without God in the picture to serve as the sustainer of life, there was no reason to believe that a nurturing aspect made any difference: all human beings were merely animals that evolved out of tadpoles in Darwin’s cosmology, and all of nature was determined by an instinct for survival. Whatever characteristics or traits a human being developed over time were developed only because of the innate need to adapt and survive. If one failed to adapt and evolve, then one did not survive. The weaker links in the species inevitably would be bred out of of existence because they would not pass on their genes. Nature thus determined all things in this viewpoint (Stigler).

Why Nurture

As the 20th century progressed, other researchers began to explore the realm of behavioral psychology and human development and they emphasized the role that nurture played in the development of the human mind, the cognition of a person and his physical abilities. Even if God did not enter into the framework, these researchers nonetheless were able to conclude that nurture was necessary in order to move the development of the human being forward. Skinner showed how species can be conditioned to act in certain ways—i.e., how their environment programs them to act in different manners. While some argued that this was merely nature acting in a nurturing manner (Herrnstein), other researchers, like Bandura, showed that human beings are highly susceptible to their environments, including what their peers, groups and media are communicating to them—all of which fosters their cognitive processes. In other words, the way people think makes a difference in terms of how people act and grow.

Erik Erikson developed a theory for the 8 stages of psycho-social development, which explained that every human being passes through 8 stages of development, normally, and that in each stage there is a conflict that has to be overcome before the person can pass on to the next stage of development. In each stage, some degree of nurture is needed, particularly in the formative early stages of a child’s life, wherein the parents play a very central role in making the child feel safe, secure, loved, and giving the child a sense of right and wrong (Munley). If the nurturing agent is not there, the child cannot move forward in the right way to face the challenge and overcome it. Instances of children left in extreme isolation have shown this to be the case. When children who have been in extreme isolation are given the right care, they are able to successfully overcome behavioral and physical obstacles that have impeded up to that point their development (Soutter). Thus, although nature if left to itself will progress in a way, nurture is necessary to guide the process and help one to develop.

Why Both

Proponents of nature or of nurture have their reasons for wanting to advocate for one or the other. Darwinians, for instance, like the idea of nature being in control and of natural selection being the dominant process by which development of the species goes on. Psychologists and in particularly the humanists tend to focus on the individual experience and show that cognitive development does not transpire unless there is some form of human interaction and support: children who are isolated are not given any nurture and as a result they can experience mental handicap or retardation or they can become like wild animals (Soutter). To help children develop, parents have to play a part, as Erikson explained. However, one can bring nature and nurture advocates together under one umbrella, which is the human experience that is unique in all of nature. Whereas animals have natural instinct to guide them, human beings have free will—i.e., a choice when it comes to guiding offspring. Some parents do not even want that responsibility and choose to have an abortion. Others have the child but neglect the child, which can lead to child endangerment and potential retardation. Others have children, and rear them properly and those children grow up to be educated. Can one imagine what would have happened to Charles Darwin had he never been educated or reared by his own parents, had he never been sent to school, had he never been raised in the upper classes of society? What if he had been abandoned in a jungle as a child? He never would have had the skills to write about the theory of evolution.

At the same time, his human nature would have played a part in his survival, if it was of good stock. A person born with strong genes will survive a child born of poor genes, who has diseases and illnesses that impede the child’s development. With this in mind, one has to be considerate of the fact that nature is there with certain programming that is entered into the human development model. Also incoming, however, is data from nurturing parents and environments: if it is not there, the lack of input impedes the progress of the individual. If it is there, the individual has something to build upon and can go on to achieve great things. So nature and nurture in this manner must be said to go together.

This mixing of nature and nurture is most evidently seen in the ways that a parent’s traits are found in the child. For example, if a child has mixed-race parents, this mixture is seen in the child’s biological features. The child is obviously impacted by the nature that is given him. Then there is the matter of sex differences, which is wholly natural. A female is different, naturally speaking, than a male: she has an altogether different anatomy with different biological functions, structure, and abilities. Her nature determines much about how she will develop as a person: her feelings, the way she socializes, the way she interacts with others, and the way she thinks of herself will all be unique aspects of her sex; and vice versa is true of a male. There are just natural differences when it comes to the biological sex of people. Yet these natural differences are not all there are to people. Society will condition them to think and behave in certain ways, as Bandura points out: media, peers and groups are highly influential from an environmental point of view, in shaping the cognitive development of human beings. Media in fact is very instrumental because it communicates a set of beliefs and values that are represented in society and people will base their actions on the ideas that fostered in media. It is why life often imitates art.

Nature and nurture thus get along and go along like roommates: they rely upon one another because human beings are neither wholly animals nor wholly something else—they have a unique blend of qualities, part spiritual and part animal. Their free will and use of reason (choosing between ideals or ideas, even if to their own destruction or to the destruction of others) is evidence of their spiritual side; their natural needs and urges is evidence of their animal side. Human beings have a need for society, as they are social creatures and they crave interaction with other people because that is how they learn and grow and take comfort. And if they are left alone, they tend to stagnate, especially if they are children, as the cases of extreme isolation show. Children who grow up in extreme isolation often need extensive special care after they are found because they have been deprived of human interaction and the nurturing that goes along with it. If they are not saved and rescued in sufficient time, they can be scarred for life and their nature will not be able to be altered because it will have already hardened into shape. For that reason, one has to admit that nature is also a force to be reckoned with—it is not just nurture doing the work. A child has a nature that is soft and moldable like clay, but time will harden it, and whatever shape that nature has taken by the time the child reaches a certain age is the shape it will have for the rest of its life. The person may still have free will and the ability to struggle against his nature, but that also points to the role that nurture plays, which is like the helping spirit that all people need.