Imagine, if we had to live in a world where everyone depended on genes to prove their identity, where people would say that they grew up mentally only because of their genes. With this mindset, the generations that are growing up today would blame their genes because they don’t have a certain personality or action as another certain type of person, but this is all influenced by socialization, how the world around affects one’s behavior, which leads to a discussion of what defines why someone is the way they are. In the nature v.s. nurture debate, the nurture side explains that while the genetic makeup may affect human behavior and genes, both nature and nurture do contribute to natural factors when explaining a person’s identity. And as of nurture, the behaviorism, development, and cognitive psychology is all affected by the environment that generations of children develop in, which molds their personality as a person.
Certainly, as we know, it is necessary to understand that behavior is mostly influenced by the acts of parenting and in some percentage; genes, but either way, the genes that affect the physical or mental reaction going off in a child’s developing mind (behavior-wise), is altered by the form of parenting provided by caretakers and/or guardians. In “Behavioral Genetics and Child Temperament” the author, Dr. Kimberly J. Saudino states in her article, “The finding that although twin studies consistently yield evidence of a genetic influence on parent-rated temperament, adoption studies suggest little or no genetic influences on children’s temperament as rated by their parents.” (Saudino 10).
Dr. Kimberly J. Saudina confirms that genes have nothing to do with how the child is raised. A child develops around people they’re around, and the author points out that though the twins had the same genetics, with the form of parenting they had grown up to be two different people because of the different environments showing different behavioral traits. Similarly, everyone develops at their own pace depending on their environment situation upon which, family members provide for a growing and developing child. Undoubtedly, everyone has different definitions for family, but either way, people around developing children influence their actions and living situation upon them.
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The child acts like a parrot in a way of copying what the parent does such as words, actions, and choice. Not only does development also occur through parenting but as well as through the physical situated environment the children advance in. In the informative article “Nature, Nurture, and Human Behavior” by Professor Eman Ahmed Zaky, the author mentions, “In general, a grossly under-stimulating or neglectful family environment may be rare, but it may have a marked impact on all or most of the children in the household. Children are particularly influenced by the experiences that they do not share with their siblings; when parents pay more attention to one sibling than another , this is more wounding than when both siblings get less parental attention than the “average child” (Zaky 13).
Professor Eman Ahmed Zaky displays that physical and natural surroundings, have an affect on children. The physical and natural environment gives off different emotional stances to a child resulting in their way of actions. And when a child feels unfairness in its environment, it impacts the child making them act differently influencing their personality to become what it’s past experiences were. The fact still remains, that different surroundings and form of parenting, affect developing stages of a person, and when it comes up to attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and thinking this is cognitive psychology.
Specifically, cognitive development which occurs usually in childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood is most influenced by nurture and mode of parenting. In 1990, researcher Freund created a study in which children aged from 3 to 5 were tested on what they already knew about furniture placement by helping a puppet decide which furniture should be placed in different rooms and so each child was assigned similar tasks either with their mother or alone and so, the mothers were directed to only guide their children rather than just teaching them. While the kids without the mothers were just told their mistakes and not anything else.
Afterwards, both children with or without the mothers were told to work on a much more complicated furniture sorting test independently. And in the end the results showed that the children who were with their mothers performed better than the children who worked independently. With researcher’s Freund’s study, it administered that nurture is beneficial when it comes to cognitive development because the study proved that the child’s trust toward the parent to guide them, they were led to success unlike the children who were tested without them because they had no guide and with the influence of family upon the child it influences the cognitive phsycology the person has which later on forms and takes part of the personality a person has.
Nonetheless, nurture is most certainly stronger in its influence on human personality because even with poor genes, it doesn’t mean it isn’t unrepairable. A human will learn to improve and to understand. Of course, it is true that genes shape a part of who we are as people. With the presence of parenting and surroundings, we allow ourselves to improve behaviorism, development, and cognitive psychology. Even though genes can make people more susceptible to things such as depression, anxiety, Etc. with good parenting, good situational environment, and love, children will be capable to control these traits with their attitude and personality because of their past experiences.
