Earlier we talked about nature vs nurture,
probably one of the most famous debates of all time. Nature vs Nurture is an on
going debate on whether or not people's personalities are more influenced by
their genetics or their upbringings. This debate seems to have no end in sight
but both sides seem to agree that both of these factors contribute to the make
up of a person. We try to answer this
question by observing different types of upbringings from a variety of genetic
backgrounds. One way of studying this is to observe a family over time and see
how they act and who they are as a person, however this has a big flaw as
everybody will have the same environment and very similar genetics. A second
way is to observe twins as they are genetically identical and can attribute any
differences to their environment. Third is observing how an adopted child acts.
This one is the most interesting because the person we observe will grow up in
an environment with no knowledge of the genetic parents lifestyle and can give
good answers as to what traits we pick up from the people around us and those
we have encoded in our DNA. In fact a
good example of this would be my brother and my self. We both had the same
mother and grew up in exactly the same way, but our genetic fathers were
different. He ended up as a factory worker with a substance habit and I am a
psych student at the University of Minnesota. Make of it what you will but I am on the genetic
side of this argument.
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