The_Nature-Nurture_Issue

CheckPoint: The Nature-Nurture Issue Katie Gasparet PSY 240 October 14, 2011 Stacie Flynn CheckPoint: The Nature-Nurture Issue Nature involves our genetic development and Nurture our experiences, without one there would not be the other. Like a car cannot drive it’s self and needs a driver, they work together to get where they're going. Without the car the driver would be less effective, and the car would not work at all. “Well that’s Dumb” It is flawed to ask how much of a particular behavior is due to genetics and how much is due to experience because it is based on the premise that genetic factors and experiential factors combine in an additive fashion-that a behavioral capacity, such as intelligence, is created through the combination of so many parts of genetics and so many parts of experience, rather than through the interaction of genetics and experience (Pinel, 2009). In the text we read: The Case of the Thinking Student, which helped explain how "dumb" it would be to say one or the other is better or not. Both contribute to forming a person's personality. I personally feel that no gene controls how I am going to act, I can't blame my parents for who I am, I have learned through experiences to be who I am, however genetics, have played a part in forming how I process things and there for have worked with my experiences to form the person I am. So neither one is better or worse, they both are important. Just as when a musician makes music it is part the instrument and part the person, they work together to make something. It is appropriate to separate the contributions of genetics and experience when measuring the development of differences among individuals because in each case, the answers lie in understanding the nature of the interactions. According to our text: neurons become active long before they are fully developed and that the subsequent course of their development depends greatly on their activity, much of which is triggered by external experience (Pinel, 2009). Conclusion The concept of Nature-or-Nurture has gone through several changes throughout the "debate". There will always be people on one side and other's on the other side, however that does not mean that one or the other is correct or wrong. Both are very important factors in developing a person's behavior. References Biopsychology, Seventh Edition, by John P.J. Pinel. Published by Allyn & Bacon. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc.