What makes us the way we become?
Are we, as individuals, the unfolding of our genes (‘nurture’), or products of our environment (‘nurture’)? This question encapsulates what is know at he ‘nature-nurture debate’, one of the most contentious issues historically in developmental psychology. Although it may be clear to the casual observer that we are influenced by both what we inherit and by what we are exposed to through life, the questions remain to what extent is our mental and psychological (and physical) make-up predetermined, and to what extent affected by life experiences, particularly in childhood, and in what ways.
From studying twins and families, maybe we are able to answer questions such as:
Is our personality inherited?
To what extent can parents enhance their children’s intelligence?
Doe the environment influence our mental health?
Do our genes have a decreasing effect on our behaviour with age?
Through systematic study, we have come a long way to understanding the complexity of the original ‘debate’ as well as the limitations of such study. Although the nature-nurture debate has deep philosophical roots, it also has real-life relevance from the individual and societal level, whenever we are concerned with attempting to change human behaviour.
Tasks
- Read the text above and try to understand any words you don’t know from the context, without using a dictionary. Make sure you read it more than once!
- Find 5 words that you think are important to the text and key to its understanding.
- Write a short summary of the text in one long well structured sentence that provides all the information you want to include.
Academic English 